Linger
by Duessa
Summary: Edward leaves, but he comes back... AFTER Bella dies. What will their "ever after" consist of now?  Can it be a happy one?  Bella/Edward; love story; strange and passionate
1. Palm

"Your love will triumph," a woman addressed me suddenly as I walked into the small carnival tent.

I was taken aback by her words as well as the strong shock of incense that attacked my lungs. I coughed a few times, though not meaning to be rude by it. I smiled politely at the woman. At first glance, her body seemed as though it would have been enfeebled. It was her charismatic character that lit the room with high energy, making her seem decades younger than she actually appeared to be otherwise. Angela, who was sitting next to Jessica, tapped the empty wooden stool next to her, offering me a seat. As I sat, the old gypsy dropped the palm of Jessica's hand in exchange for mine. Jessica looked between me and the old woman, shaking her head in confusion.

"What?" Jessica asked. "_She_ doesn't even believe in love anymore. What about _me_? Will _my_ love triumph?"

The old woman turned my hand over in hers, examining it very closely. Jessica huffed and sighed loudly. She was sparing no pains in being absolutely sure that the fortune teller knew she was not a satisfied customer.

"Look," she scowled at the woman, "I paid you to tell me _my_ fortune. Not _hers_."

The old woman didn't even lift her head in recognition of Jessica's words. She gave no indication that she was aware of the stingy scoldings from her teenage client.

"What makes you say that?" Angela asked the woman curiously. "About her, um, _triumph_?"

"Isabella's hand shows me many things," she _promptly_ replied to Angela's curiosity.

The skin around the old woman's eyes looked as though it was made of dry paint cracked with age, breaking violently against her vivid excitement.

"I have anticipated this moment," she said, tearing up a little then.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Ms. Swan," she replied, "I've seen you before."

"You have?"

"Yes," she nodded enthusiastically. "Decades ago."

"I'm only eighteen," I argued. "Just turned a few months ago."

"Yes," she agreed. "I know."

"You can't have seen me before. I think I would have remembered _you_. I've never even paid to have my fortune told before anyhow."

"That's right," Jessica stammered. "In fact, she hasn't even paid to have it told _now_. It's _my_ hand that forked over the money."

I withdrew my hand from the old woman's to make way for Jessica's.

"Free of charge," the woman offered as she held direct eye-contact with me.

I was the first of the two of us to blink. She reached further across the small, round, cloth-covered table. She extended her long crooked, outstretched fingers and waited patiently. It was obvious to me that nothing was going to continue unless I played along with the palm reader's silly game.

"Okay," I said, placing my hand in hers willingly this time. "Tell me what you see then."

She closed her eyes and began to hum a haunting croon. My eyelids felt heavy all of a sudden. The crisp winter breeze that swirled into the tent from the snow-covered grounds faded away and a warm draft intruded. The incense that I had perceived as rather strong and vicious mere seconds ago dissipated entirely. The now warm air smelled of honey and lemonade over grass and cool waters: a stark contrast to the reality that we were in the middle of January.

"You will be with him," she sang as she swayed to the rhythm of her song.

The empty pit of despair that had lurched in my core for going on four months rescinded. Within half a heartbeat, all of the discomfort bowed down humbly and gave way to hope. I took in the deepest breath I ever had; never having before been aware of it really was to _breathe_.

"You see?" she asked. "You believe me. I can _feel_ that you do. Everything around us has changed because of what you are now centering your expectations upon. Do not lose sight of this reality that can be yours. It is more than a mirage or an illusion, Isabella."

"What…" I whispered hungrily, "What… what will happen?" I asked. "What will make this possible? Will he come back?"

"You will find him before he finds you," she revealed.

"How?" I asked. "_How_ can I find him? Where shall I look?"

"You will be drawn to him," she replied quickly.

"I already am," I admitted.

"You will not be… _held back_ as you are now," she whispered. "You will be able to go where you cannot at this time go."

"Where is that?" I begged. "Where will I go?"

"It is more of…_how_ you will go."

"How is that?"

"You will leave us, Bella. You will leave us but you will still be here. You will long for embraces but none will come. None will see you standing there, waiting… none but those who have the gift or who have your heart. Only they will find you."

"They?" I asked.

She nodded her head, indicating surety in this thing.

"When? _When_ will we be together again?"

"Not long from now. You will _linger_, Bella. You will remain. You will not cross away from us. You never can because you will not desire to leave… to move on. You will find yourself waiting for him… he is your desire, and so he shall find you."

The grip she had on my hand softened, and I was saddened when I realized that she had already said all that she meant to say. Was there not more to reveal? Something more specific? A plan of sorts? A map? A how-to guide or a checklist? I was desperate for a more specific path. Surely she was not finished helping me feel this warmth that I had longed for all this time? There were so many more questions I needed the answers to. How _exactly _was I going to find Edward? How was he going to find me? Couldn't he find me now? Couldn't he just come back? He _must_ have known I would wait for him forever. Wouldn't he already have known that he is my whole world?

"Can you not tell me more than this?" I pressed.

She glanced behind me, then away.

"It is better that I do not."

She let go of my hand, as I feared she would. The chill in the air returned and the thick fragrance of the incense stung my senses all over again.

Jessica immediately held her hand up. The woman reached into the ratty apron she donned and pulled out the twenty that Jessica had given her. Her hand never touched Jessica's as she pushed the money into it.

"I see nothing," the woman said flatly, giving Jessica's palm merely half a glance, if that.

"That's because you haven't _tried_," Jessica whined. "You saw something for _Bella_."

"For your friend there was something special to see. For you I can merely guess and be correct. Let's give it a try, shall we?"

Jessica placed the money on the table and held her hand out again.

"That won't be necessary," the woman said. "I don't need to touch your hand to tell you that the boy with whom you are enamored will be impressed with the dress you've selected in your mind to wear to the dance tomorrow. I don't even need a pack of cards or a crystal ball to see that you and he will connect in some _exclusive_ way. You will dance all night, flirt all week and maybe go out on a date or two. Shall I tell you if it will work out in the end?" Jessica's eyes were wide with anticipation. She had no clue that this woman had no intention of revealing anything to her. "Well, it _won't_," the woman snapped and Jessica blinked rapidly. "Believe me when I tell you that it never does."

The woman lifted Jessica's money and dropped it in her unsatisfied hand once more.

"Go now," she demanded coldly. "And remember, Isabella, how _you _felt. Remember that warm reverie that melted the snow outside and within, allowing you to feel softhearted again. Everything points to your reunion; though I feel compelled to warn you that things are not always as you expect them to be."

I stood to leave immediately, not even waiting for Angela or Jessica. A heavy lump in my throat developed from my neglecting the tears that perhaps I should have allowed to fall. But no. I was stronger than this. I would not allow myself to cry here. I had pushed them back for four months.

_Bella Swan does _not _cry... even if she very badly wants to._

Everything about this situation was cruel. The ache in my heart returned tenfold. For a brief moment I was allowed to feel that burden lifted. I was vulnerable and stupid enough to let myself hope for Edward again. I just knew before I even left the house that tonight would be terrible. I would have been better off if I just stayed locked away in my room as I always had since he left me. The pain that came over me was nothing more than absolute proof that I was a stupid idiot who bought into some old fishwife's crap.

"Why did I come out?" The words just slipped through my teeth.

"Don't let it bug you too much," Angela said, sliding out of the tent and patting my arm. "She is paid to entertain. That's all she does. It is all anyone _can_ do when it comes to stuff like this. No one can tell you if something is or isn't in your future, Bella."

"But the way I _felt_," I stuttered. "That woman was right about how I _felt_."

"She's an emotion reader," Angela said. "It's just like any old parlor trick. Don't get wrapped up in it. None of it's real."

"Yeah," I said, nodding my head half-heartedly as I mentally kicked myself in my own rear for letting myself get swallowed up by what some lady in a gypsy costume said.

I should _not_ have listened to the hag, but I was _desperate_ for someone or something to comfort me.

"Nothing can," I said.

"Nothing can _what_?" Angela asked.

_Comfort me,_ I didn't say. Instead I just shook my head.

"Oh, Bella," she whispered, maybe sensing how much pain I was in.

She must not have been able to think of anything else to say. She just stood there as if waiting for me to speak. I blushed at how awkward the moment had become. I wanted to tell her how much I hurt. I had wanted to tell someone for four months now. But I couldn't. It wouldn't have been right to burden someone with my feelings. After all, there was nothing anyone could say or do that would make this ache less than what it was. Nothing, that is, except for Edward coming back to me.

I shrugged my shoulders, not really knowing what to say either. It wasn't her fault that her best attempt at showing me a good time tonight turned into such a massive failure. Fun small-town carnivals weren't really 'my thing' anyway.

"I don't know, Angela," I said to break the silence. "I just don't know anymore."

"Hey," she said, nudging me with her elbow, "You're going to be okay, Bella. You are going to be alright. You'll see."

"Yeah," I said, nodding and trying to smile. "I guess so."

"Well that was a bunch of weird crap," Jessica said, storming out of the woman's tent. "I offered to pay her double for some _real_ info and she turns her old nose up at it! How about that? Not that I _care_ what she has to say. To be honest, she was starting to creep me out with all this reading your hand and giving me back my money. I think she only means to _scare_ us! Can you believe the nerve of her?"

"I was just telling Bella that no one can truly know anything about us anyway," Angela said. "She's just some carnival act who tours from town to town selling words you could probably find in the horoscope section of today's newspaper."

"Yeah?" Jessica asked. "She must have _really_ met you before though, Bella, like she said. I mean, she must know your dad or something?"

"Why do you say that?" I asked.

"Well… she knew your name. Your _whole _name. Neither Angela or I said it in there. In fact, I didn't even know that your middle name is Marie."

Instead of the chill up my spine that I probably _should have_ felt, there came that warm feeling of hope again.

"She's good," Angela admitted. "I'll give her that. But she must have figured it out somehow. That's all there can really be to it."

We walked around for awhile, enjoying the sights and sounds of the Winter Carnival that our small town was hosting this year. Several local music and theatre acts were performing and there were rides with lights and all of the usual junk food refreshments. The snow on the ground magnified the strange, twisting colorful lights that were strung from lamppost to lamppost along the streets. The grief was beginning to sink in again- the tears torn afresh. I felt unbalanced as the sounds of children's laughter echoed through the night air.

I didn't belong here.

Not here at the carnival.

Not by Edward's side.

I was beginning to realize that I didn't belong _anywhere_.

One part of me couldn't wait to get back home so I could crawl under my sheets and disappear from the world again. That was how I felt pretty much all of the time since he left. However, another part – a _smaller _part – forced my eyes to search around, to scan all of the faces in the crowd. Was he here somewhere? Was he watching me?

Would I find him somehow, like the woman said?

And would _he _find _me_?

"Do you guys want to ride anything? I have a ton of tickets?" Jessica offered.

Angela seemed excited about the idea. I didn't want to bog them down.

"You two go ahead," I insisted. "I'll catch up with you later."

"Promise?" Angela asked.

There was something wise in her… as if she just knew that something wasn't right about this situation. But, as she said herself, no one could know what our futures actually were. I don't think anyone would have anticipated what _mine_ was going to be this night.

"Yeah," I nodded.

I truly believed that I would see her again. However, I felt that she would not be able to see me. That turned out to be true.

"You two have fun," I continued.

I waved them away from me, and then turned to walk away. I made a left at the corner. All of the main roads were blocked off for the carnival. As soon as the strands of lights no longer reached above me, and I was sure that no one was around, I allowed myself to cry.

I walked for so long. All the while I could hear the music and laughter behind me.

I never turned to look back. I didn't have the heart to. I just moved forward, into the darkness and away from the light.

A couple of hours had passed; I was sure of it. My toes were numb and my fingers were in pain from trying to curl them. The tips weren't getting enough blood, both from the intense cold _and_ from my body just being worn out from the constant movement through the deep snow.

I looked below me, realizing I had finally come to the edge.

I couldn't _see_ the waters churning, but I could definitely hear them. I knew from their sound that they were extremely violent tonight. The moon wasn't out; it was covered by clouds. I could still see the stars, but they meant little to me anymore. They didn't have the ability to fill me with wonder the way they once could.

I must have already made up my mind because I _knew_ what was coming. There was no doubt about it… no second-guessing. _This_ was _it_.

I didn't close my eyes as I walked forward. I didn't gasp in fear as I felt the lack of steady earth beneath my feet. I didn't feel colder than I already had when my frail body hit the waters, or as I went limp and was caught up in a strong current. I didn't try to fight, either by kicking my legs, thrashing my arms, or thinking about how I wanted to live. I knew I didn't anymore. I had known that since he left. Only now was I getting around to doing anything about it.

My eyes were still open.

They were open when my lungs filled with salty water and when all of the air forced its way out of me. They were open when my shoulders jerked out of instinct. They were open when my back was beaten against jagged rocks deep beneath the surface and when the strength of the current let up, allowing my remains to wash to the shore. They were open in the morning when the sun rose over the cliff and when the search dogs barked. They were open when my father saw me on my back in the sand, when he fell to his knees and sobbed in despair. They were open when they put me in the bag and when they moved me to a cold steel table. They were open when they washed my hair and dressed me.

And when they closed my eyes and lay me in my casket, I could _still_ see. I could see all around me. I was aware of everyone and everything. I followed the casket to the church. I followed it to the grave. I listened to the minister's words and the lamenting of my friends and schoolmates. My mother and father sat side by side. It was the first time I had seen them _together_ since my mother left when I was four. _This_ is what brought them face to face for the first time in fourteen years. I could see my casket lowered into the ground. People began to leave, but my parents stayed put.

Hours passed and finally my father and mother left my grave. When the sun went down, dirt was set over the casket to fill in the small, shabby hole where my body would remain… though _I_ moved about elsewhere.

I sat on my headstone and waited. I watched as flowers were brought.

Angela.

Mike and Tyler.

Jessica.

Charlie. He brought them every week, usually on a Sunday. He would sit on the bench beside my grave and I sat next to him; though, he didn't know it. He swallowed a couple beers each time, numbing the pain that rose to his surface as he cried each visit. He would always ask questions, and I would always answer him… though he did not perceive as much.

In April the snow began to melt. It was the third Tuesday of the month that a rare visitor entered through the gate of the little graveyard.

"Oh, Bella! It's true. I had hoped not," said the tiny voice. "There was nothing I could have done. I couldn't get to you in time. You made up your mind so quickly. Forgive me."

"There is nothing to forgive, Alice," I urged. "It's not your fault."

Indeed, this _wasn't_ her fault. Surely she couldn't be blaming herself for this?

"It _is_," she argued. "It _is_ my fault. I should have come back, even without my family. Even without Edward. Or I should have said goodbye. But I didn't even give you that much. You didn't get to know how well loved you are by us all… by _me_."

"I get to know now," I said.

She sat on Charlie's bench. I sat beside her.

"I wish I could tell you how much you mean to me," she whimpered.

"Tell me," I offered. "I am listening."

"I always felt as though we were sisters. I always loved you like one; though I was too stupid to show you. I deserted you and now you are in a grave."

"My body is," I admitted. "But _I_ am sitting here beside you, Alice."

She stood up all of a sudden, and gasped.

"Or…" she said, walking around the bench in a wide circle, "_Are_ you?"

I stood up too, and walked beside her. She held her hand out, as if trying to feel something with her outstretched fingers. Out of instinct, I lifted my hand out in front of me. Alice moved her palm around, coming closer and closer to me until her hand aligned perfectly with mine.

"Bella?" she asked.

"Yes," I whispered, "I am here."

...

A/N: Linger: to remain or stay on in a place longer than is usual or expected, as if from reluctance to leave; to remain alive; continue or persist, although gradually dying, ceasing, disappearing, etc.; to dwell in contemplation


	2. Illusion

**EPOV**

I lay in the bed provided by the furnishing agents of the little hovel that was my apartment in Rio de Janeiro. The lights of _Christ the Redeemer_ illuminated the night sky. Once again, the sun had parted to the west.

Another day gone.

I breathed in shallowly, then forced the air out, only to release very little of the tension that wound its way through me since I had finally forced myself to leave her.

Another day without the force that propelled me through my shabby existence… another day without Bella. Another day without the presence of the woman I loved and craved… but _not_ another night.

I knew that whatever my mind had managed to conjure up could be no more than an illusion. Indeed, I had been deceived by some strange thing which produced a false and misleading impression of reality for many nights now. I had enough sense to know that I wasn't dreaming, for I never slept. Yet if it was not dreaming then what might it be? Had I finally caved in and gone mad?

Probably so.

I closed my eyes and tried to relax. I waited patiently for the warm arms that would come to siphon the remaining few drops of my precious sanity. I decided that if I thought on the matter too much then she might not come again. I might realize that she had never come and never would. I might understand that I was making all of this up and the only reason I was seeing anything at all was because I so very much wanted to see her again. But I could not go home again. I could never allow myself to get involved in her life in any degree. I tried repeating those conclusions over and over in my mind, but the truth was that my will was beginning to waver. I tried to approach it from another angle: I had to hope for the best… well, for _her_ best. I would have to hope that she would be brave and move on without me; that she would find someone new to love. With how many guys that thought of nothing other than my Bella, that should not be such a difficult thing for fate to conjure up. That thought brought with it an onslaught of despair, and I rolled over in an attempt to shut my mind off and let it wander wherever it may. I had to pierce my heart over and over again as I reminded myself that the beautiful schoolgirl who wandered through the halls of Forks High was no longer _my_ Bella. In leaving her I left her an open target for other guys to woo.

I lay there for only few moments more before I felt the hallucination's warm arms wrap around my body, and the soft graze of her breasts as she pressed herself to my back.

"You've come back," I whispered.

She ran her fingers through my disarranged hair. I languished in these moments.

"As I said I would," she replied.

"Why do you come to me?" I asked boldly, not daring to look her in her deep chocolate eyes while voicing my curiosity. "How is it that you are here, Bella? Are you in my mind, but I can somehow feel you and hear you with perfect clarity?"

"I come to you because I love you," she said quietly. I relished in how her warm breath rushed across the back of my neck as she spoke. "As for _how_ I am here, I can hardly say. I don't really understand it at all."

"Neither do I," I murmured, keeping my back to her front still.

I thought of how my dreams for our happy future could never come true; not without taking her life away from her. I couldn't bring myself to do it: I couldn't bring myself to change her; to alter her in any way. She was perfect as she was and she would stay that way as long as I didn't rush in and interfere with her life again. She was willing once, to be changed, and I was almost sure she would be so inclined to prefer it still. But I had already decided that I couldn't do that: I couldn't go back again. All that I had left of her for my own greedy self were memories of our past; memories that I clung to with every ounce of life I pretended to have. The recollections of what once was would have to suffice for as long as I walked this degenerate earth. I couldn't be so greedy as to return and make more for myself.

I turned over to meet her lovely face with a kiss, for this mirage that entered my room each time the sun went down was all I had now, and all I had the right to hope for. Her lips parted slightly as I kissed them.

"Sometimes I want more than this," I admitted.

"More than what?" she asked.

"I know you aren't really here."

"What makes you say that, Edward?"

"I know if I go back to Forks that you will actually be _there_. So, you are not truly here with me. I pine for you so greatly that I make myself believe that I am kissing your lips. I want them so badly… I want _you_ so badly, Bella."

"You have me now," she said firmly. "You wouldn't stay with me, so I've come to you. I _am_ real, Edward," she argued meekly, "In greater measure than you may realize."

"Why can you not stay with me in the day then?"

"I could, if you really wanted me to."

"Believe me, Bella, when I tell you that I _do_ want that."

"I can't let you have it," she said, turning away from me.

"Wait," I pleaded, "Why not? Why can't I have you all the time?"

"You would have to come find me, Edward. You don't want that."

"Find you _how_?" I asked, pulling her back toward me and wrapping my arms around her now.

"Find me…" A worried look swept over her face as she tried to turn her head away from me. My hand gently guided her chin back toward me so that I could at least look in her eyes, even if she wouldn't look in mine. "Find me… as I really am," she whispered.

"As you really are?"

"I am not how you left me, Edward. I am not…" Her voice gradually faded as she spoke so that she ended without giving me even a clue as to what she was getting at.

"You are not what?" I prodded, hoping she would let me in on some sort of factual thing. Yet, how could she have? She wasn't really Bella… _was_ she?

She didn't say anything at all. Her mouth opened as if she might complete her previous thought, but she shook her head quickly and bit her lip.

"I will visit you, then," I decided. "I will go to Forks and see you and not let you see me. That way this part of you will stay with me forever, even if I am just going crazy and making you all up."

I laughed suddenly at realizing that I was giving in to my own subconscious demand, made by a part of me I didn't even realize I had. There was some deep, hidden inherency residing in me that would not let itself die until I saw Bella. Fine. I could handle that. I would go see her while keeping my distance and then this illusion would be with me be it night _or_ day. Whatever. At this point I would cave into myself out of reckless want for her strange presence.

"I don't want you to find me that way," she said.

"What way?" I asked. "Have you moved on, then? Are you happy with someone else?"

I have to admit that the idea of her and another man did sting a little, but it was the best case scenario for her, and after all was said and done I would still get to keep some part of her… some made up, crazy part that wasn't really there, but which I could at least allow myself to believe was.

"It's not that," she said, turning her head away from me again. "It's really… actually… quite the opposite. I don't think you are prepared to see what I have become, Edward. Please, don't return to Forks."

"You are still sad? You are unwilling to move on without me?" I guessed.

Is that what this was all about then? Was it my responsibility to return to her and encourage her to move on? Wouldn't her seeing me face to face again crush any possibility of that happening though? I wished that she would just tell me plainly why she couldn't be with me all the time; however, without her elaborating on the matter I was forced to assume things.

"I am happy because I am here with you," she insisted.

"Sometimes you are," I argued, "But not all the time. And you can't be with me always, can you? Not until I find the real you and comfort you."

My fingers glided down her back and across the slight curve in her hips as I held her closely to me for a long while. The peaceful rest was disrupted, however, by an obnoxious sound.

I spun toward my phone to ignore whoever was calling me this time.

_Alice._

I hit the button that would reject my sister's call and then turned back around toward Bella; however, she was no longer there. I searched my room as I always did each time she disappeared.

I sat up on my bed and shook my head, again running my hands through my hair.

"I would do anything to keep some part of you," I whispered, hoping she would somehow hear me.

I reached for the phone, fully aware that over the last several months I had rejected thousands of calls from my family. I don't know what made me do it this time… but I did it. I scrolled through the missed calls and found Alice's number. I pressed the button that would return her call.


	3. Awkward Silence

**EPOV**

I didn't understand why Alice seemed less than thrilled to hear my voice. I guess it was natural that she would be stunned after my neglecting her and everyone else all this time.

"I didn't see you picking up," she said. Some greeting that was. Not even a _Hello! How are you? Long time, no see._

"I didn't."

"I know," she replied quickly. "I know that you called me back. But… I didn't see that _either_."

"Why did you call if you didn't want to talk, Alice?"

Almost thirty seconds of silence passed and I wondered if maybe I shouldn't have asked such an open-ended question. Though, her track record for exercising her gift of gab showed perfectly well that she had never fallen short before. Why the long silence?

"It's not that I don't want to talk. It's just that…"

"You think I'm crazy?" I asked, raising one eyebrow to match the crooked grin and getting ready to laugh when she did. No laughter came. More empty distance between us: complete silence.

"I didn't see you saying _that_," she said. She sounded alarmed, which indicated that it was true; she thought I was a lunatic. Well, I guess when all was added up, she was right about that. She could at least be polite about it and laugh a little. Still though, nothing. Just another long, awkward silence. Usually it was _she_ who prompted _me_. I wasn't used to playing the game the other way around.

"Why don't you tell me what you _did_ see, then?" I suggested sharply. I probably made it clear that I was a bit offended by her seeming indifference to hearing from me at last and by her strange mood that was affecting how we usually interacted. There was nothing playful between us as was typical. Nothing warm or endearing, or even half-heartedly welcoming.

"I don't know what you're planning on doing," she said. "I don't know what you're going to see or hear or whatever. I just think that maybe you should come up to Alaska for awhile. Esme has decided to renovate a mansion in Paris and we'll be moving out there in about a week. A week would give you plenty of time to get here, right? You liked Paris once, remember? Maybe you could join us there and we could all…"

"Actually, I have a different idea. Brace yourself for this one, Alice, because you probably haven't seen it coming: Let's all move back to Forks."

I don't know why it just slipped out that way. I honestly hadn't planned on actually moving back. I was just going to slip in and see how things were going since I'd left. I wasn't even sure if I was going to let Bella actually see me again, but now that the idea was out there, hell, why not just move back? It's what we all really want anyway.

"I knew you'd say that," she said.

"Don't sound like such a kicked puppy, Alice." _Why_ was she not elated over the idea? "And what do you mean _you knew_ I'd say that? _I_ didn't even know I was going to say…"

"I don't think it's such a great idea," she said, cutting me off.

Hell, what was up with her? She knows I'm depressed, and I'd be willing to wager that they were _all_ depressed at being torn away from the one human who could bring us _home_ and make us feel _alive_ again, so how could it not be 'such a good idea?'

"What are you talking about?" I nearly laughed the words out, but only because I was becoming frustrated with how she was acting. "It's the best idea I've ever had. Moving away was the worst idea I've ever had, and this would fix it."

"No one is disputing the fact that us moving away from Forks was the worst idea any of us have ever gone along with, but I don't think moving back would fix anything." She sounded angry this time. Well, at least it was _something_ instead of the complete _nothing_ she had been putting out until now.

"What are you talking about?" I asked. Then, it hit me. She must know something that I didn't. She must be in the know regarding Bella and any new relationship she might be in. Only a very few seconds of silence had gone by in total this time, but I couldn't wait any longer to ask once the idea struck me, for it pained me so deeply to think on it. "So, is she with someone else now, then?" God, that sounded so desperate. I should have waited longer to actually ask.

"What?" she snapped.

"Is Bella in love with someone else now?" I asked like a half-scared, half-angry, but one hundred percent stupid little boy. "Alice? Is she?" Hell, did I have to _beg_ her to tell me the worst news I'd ever hear in my life? _Come on, Alice. Get with it. What the hell do you want from me?_

"No," she said after yet again, another awkward silence. "It's not like that."

"Not that you've _seen_, anyway," I said, referring of course to her visions. I felt pathetic at letting my sister hear me mope this way – over the mere possibility that what I had once said I wanted for Bella (to move on and be happy) had finally happened.

"I _have_ seen, Edward. I went back. No one knows. I haven't said a word to the family and I don't want to have to say a word to you. All I have to say about the matter is stay away from there. It's not like it used to be and it won't ever be again. I've given you fair warning. That's all I can say about it. I have to go Edward. Just… just promise me you'll at least _think_ about Paris, okay? You've made your clean break out of that town. It would do no good going back. I can tell you one thing I've seen in my visions and it's that no good will _ever_ come from your returning there. Paris is a fresh start for all of us and we all need a fresh start at this point. Okay?"

I didn't know what to say. She waited for about twenty seconds and must have seen that I wouldn't come up with any kind of answer soon, so she hung up. The clicking sound that signaled the end of the call wrenched at my core initially, but I was glad to be rid of the awkward silences and the strange, unreadable tones of my sister's usually-happy – but not so much now – voice.

I looked around my empty room. The lights of the enormous statue were fading as the sun dragged its way over the horizon once again. I couldn't live like this anymore. I couldn't be without her anymore. Empty room… empty heart… empty mind… God! Everything was just so damn _empty _without her.

I didn't know what Alice saw in Forks, but I didn't much care at that point. I figured that nothing could have ached more than the dull, ongoing emptiness that was eating away at my mind every day and every night. _Our being away from one another had nothing to do with the choices she has made_, I reasoned. _It's all on me. I'm the only one drawing a line in the sand – making boundaries where there doesn't have to be any._ I didn't want to draw that line every single day anymore. I _couldn't _draw that line anymore. I had to be with her again. Pure and simple.

_I'll move home alone then. You can all go to Paris if you want to, but count me the hell out. Forks is the only place I am meant to be. With Bella is the only place I am meant to be._

I didn't bother packing clothes or any of the crap I accumulated, except for a necklace I bought her a month or so earlier thinking I would never actually give it to her. I bought it from some old gypsy-hag in some alley market. She seemed more than interested in reading my fortune, but I think we all know why I can't let mortals touch my cold hands.

I grabbed my phone and wallet, slid on my jacket to cover my skin and ordered the plane ticket over the phone on my way to the airport. I was out of that hovel and in the air within the hour.


	4. Her Journal

**EPOV**

The car I rented was slower than I would have liked. Sure the speedometer went up to one-forty miles an hour, but that's no guarantee that the engine would. This thing seemed to clock out at one-ten, and that was if I really pushed it. I was driving to Forks from Victoria, Canada. It was the only location I could get non-stop from Brazil. Only ten more minutes or so before I'd hit the exit that would take me to the small town where my dream girl lived.

In the last half hour I'd received more than a dozen phone calls from Alice. I decided not to pick up. She knew where I was headed and really had no right to have a problem with that. I regretted leaving and I was sure that the only way that I could make this pain go away was to go back to the one thing in the world that made me truly happy. How could what I was doing _not_ fix the mistake I had made? Another round of her ringtone blared before I decided to just shut my phone off permanently. My first and only task was to find Bella. Who knows? Maybe I could talk her into just eloping with me and we could blow off the rest of the world for a few decades? Or centuries?

I hit the gas harder with my right foot at the thought. Not long and I would be with her again.

The sun literally disappeared behind dense, gray clouds as I entered the small town. I passed the little hardware shop and the red-roofed pharmacy just off City Hall St. and decided to take the next available parking spot, which just happened to be in front of a diner. It was a Saturday, so she wouldn't be in school. I wondered what she was up to at this very moment. Maybe she was hiking through the woods with Angela or being sexually harassed at the grocery store by Mike. Maybe she was even shopping with Jessica? Never mind. Scratch that last one. That was pretty unlikely.

I laughed as I hopped out of the car and didn't bother locking it as I joined the passers-by on the crowded sidewalk. I heard a familiar voice not far ahead and made my way through the crowd to see Angela. Her laughter stopped abruptly and she stared at me in near-shock as she noticed me waving at her. I flashed her a smile, hoping it would persuade her to tell me anything I wanted to know.

"Angela!" I said happily. "How are you?"

"How… _am_ I?" she asked confusedly. "What do you mean?" She shook her head as if trying to make sense of something. "What are you doing here, anyway? I thought you and your family moved to California?"

I shrugged. "We did. But I thought I'd come back."

"_Too bad you didn't decide that sooner,"_ she thought.

I felt a sudden pang in my chest as I realized that Bella must be pursuing other options at this point, but I shoved off the feeling as soon as it came. Surely I would have the power to win her back? After all, it was _me_ she loved, and _not_ anybody else.

"Look, Edward. I'm happy to see you. I really am. But I have to get going. I have somewhere to be and I can't be late."

She broke eye contact with me as she reached into her purse to act like she was thumbing through it for something of great importance. She didn't look back as I called after her or asked, "Hey, do you know where Bella might be today?"

She just walked faster and thought, _"Oh my God. He has no idea."_

No idea?

I kept walking until I came to the front of the diner. I looked through the foggy glass and saw Jessica and Mike holding hands over a little round table. They were sipping out of the same milkshake and making goo-goo eyes at one another. I decided to not go in. I wasn't much interested in having to be around their thoughts at present. I leaned my back against the glass and tried to figure out where I should go from here. I looked around the crowded streets and bustling stores and decided it was too crowded. That was my first clue: Bella hated crowds. She wouldn't be out here today. She was probably at her house. I saw the police cruiser speed through the streets and saw that Charlie was busy. That probably meant that Bella would be home doing laundry and catching up on homework like the good girl she was. I walked quickly through the streets until I was away from the crowd and then took off running for her street.

When I got to her house, I slipped in through her bedroom window as I always had. The familiar habit brought with it a peculiar joy. I hadn't realized how much I missed opening that window every night. I stepped in and looked around.

There were CDs and books on the floor, as well as some laundry that could have been clean _or_ dirty. Who ever knew with Bella? I brushed some thick dust off of her desk. Her keyboard looked neglected too, like it hadn't been touched in months. I noticed the monitor was also covered in dust, as well as the back of her wooden chair. It was in her character to have her things sprawled about, but I've never known her to let them get dirty before. I shrugged it off. I didn't care if she never vacuumed or lifted a rag again, so long as she would be mine.

I made my way toward the hallway and looked around.

"Bella?" I called.

No answer came.

Maybe she had to run out for an errand and wasn't home yet. I crossed the hallway and looked down into the driveway to see that her red truck was here. Maybe she had been picked up by friends or… or a _boyfriend_ to go do something for the day. No matter. I could wait patiently.

I went back into her bedroom to have a look around. I sat on her bed and noticed a thin layer of dust scatter into the air. _Dust? On the bed? Really?_ I gave the room another glance and if I didn't know any better, I would say that this room seemed abandoned entirely. Aside from the belongings all over the floor, it was as if no one actually lived in here. In fact, there was a sort of sad energy all around me as I thought of the dust.

I can't explain what pulled me toward it, but I knelt down beside the bed and looked underneath. It wasn't on the floor, but up in the box springs. It was a small journal that fit into my hand. I opened the first page and my heart broke as I read.

_Today is the first day I am really alone. It's like I woke up for the first time in over a month. He's been gone that long. It's October now. I want to scream at the sky, hoping he might hear me. I don't know where he really is. Everyone thinks they went to California, but I don't think they would choose one of the sunniest areas in the world to live. I've made a list of places I think they might be in my mind, but I just can't write them out. Whenever I think of him being somewhere else or with someone else, my heart tears open afresh. I sometimes wonder if there's a way out of this madness: I can only think of one sure way, but I'm too big a coward to do that. _

Yes, be a coward! Don't even think on it, Bella. It will never have to come to that.

The thought of her giving up and giving in scared the living hell out of me, and I regretted more than ever my decision to leave Forks behind. She seemed to be in more danger alone than with a house full of vampires, and I shook my head at that sad fact.

I turned the page and saw a few scribbles here and there. They weren't the usual doodles one would expect from a teenage girl's diary. Rather, they were… _darker_ than the usual arrows through hearts. I flipped through the pages until there was more to read.

_Thanksgiving is next week. We have too many days off from school. I don't know what will occupy my mind if I have to be here alone all day every day. I know Charlie is scared. He says he can't wait for me to get some turkey and fixings down me. People have started to notice that I'm wasting away. Nothing has a taste, though. I don't think anything ever will again. Jessica asked me what diet I've been using. She didn't laugh when I told her it was called depression. Her shocked expression was the first thing that almost made me laugh in so long, and I thought I actually might, but I didn't. I thought of Edward, and I couldn't._

I was so sad to know that I was the one who brought this beautiful, intelligent girl so much despair. I pocketed the journal figuring there would be time to scan through the rest of it between that moment and when I saw her again. I could hardly bring myself to keep it open at that point. I was sick with guilt. But there were fifty or so pages, most of them with at least something to say. I more looked forward to hearing these things summed up from her in person than reading them, but I've always wished for a way into her mind. This just might be it. I was just so sad that she had so many sad things to say; enough to fill a journal with.

I walked over to her closet and opened the door. Only one thing was on hangers. Everything else was crammed into the hamper below. Or scattered across her floor. I looked at the jeans and t-shirt on the hanger. I pulled them loose and examined them. They were dry now, but they smelled as if they had been left to dry in a damp hole. They were filthy and when I looked closely, I saw large patches of a dark rust color. I examined them more carefully and realized that it was actually watered down blood. I ran my fingers between the front and back sides of the t-shirt and noticed that there were tiny rips all over it. It looked as if it had been dragged over something sharp or prickly. The jeans were equally as filthy, though there were only two holes: one in the right knee and the other in the left thigh. I folded them both over the hanger and returned it to the rod and closed the door.

I looked around again and felt strange at all of this. Nothing was as it had been. It's not just that. Nothing was… bright or seemed… alive?

I slid through the window again and closed it behind me. I jumped to the ground and heard the door of Bella's truck opening. I ran to the front of the house.

"Bella!" I cried as I turned the corner, but she wasn't the one hopping in the truck.

It was her father's friend's son.

"Jacob?" I asked.

He stared at me as if trying to determine who I might be.

"Yeah?" he asked.

"What are you doing with Bella's truck?"

"It's not Bella's truck anymore," he said. "My dad bought it back from Charlie. I'm just here to pick it up and take it back to the Res."

"Did Bella get a new car?" I asked.

He looked at me with narrowed eyes. Was he confused or angry or what? I couldn't quite tell. I turned to his thoughts for possible answers.

"_Man, this kid is sick. What the hell is wrong with him?"_

"What did you say your name was again?" he asked.

"I didn't," I answered honestly.

If he wasn't angry before, he certainly seemed to be so now.

"Wait, I know _you_. You're that Cullen guy that Bells was always hanging out with. You're the one who caused all this!" He hopped out of the truck and came toward me. He stuck his finger in my face. "You know what? You'd be better off to not show your face around this town. I'd especially not let Charlie see you. He'll kill you if he ever gets the chance."

"What?" I asked. "What are you talking about? Caused what? _What_ did I cause?"

He stared at me and wondered if I really didn't know.

"Don't know _what_?" I asked, not bothering to censor the fact that I was revealing that I heard his thoughts. I didn't care anymore. What the _hell_ was I supposed to just automatically know and why wasn't anybody thinking about it?

"What?" he asked. "What did you say?"

"I said that you think I don't know something. What is it that I don't know? Just say it already!"

He dropped his finger down to his side and relaxed his shoulders. He still didn't say a word, but that didn't matter. He didn't have to. Finally, he was thinking what both he and Angela couldn't bring themselves to actually say.

He thought of a headstone with Bella's name on it. He thought of how snow covered the ground at the time they dug her grave and how it covered the ground again just two days after they laid her in it. He thought of how he was one of the first on scene to see Bella's dead body around the high cliffs on the Quileute Reservation. She was wearing _that_ t-shirt and _those_ jeans. There was blood all over her, even in her hair. The water had raked most of her small wounds clean every time it had lapped over her after it brought her to shore. Her leg was twisted and her arms sprawled in a broken way around her core. Her eyes were open and still glossy, even in death.

I couldn't think straight. I had seen more than I wanted to. Anything at all concerning her death was more than I would have wanted to know, but how could I have been satisfied without knowing the truth? And yet, what was the truth but the worst news I could have imagined?

"No," I whispered, mostly to myself. This couldn't have been accurate. He must have been mistaken.

I took off running toward the cemetery at top speed. I didn't bother to conceal it. I just ran. It was all I could do.

…

A/N: Thank you for taking the time to read this story. I know it's a sad one so far, but it won't always be. Above all else, this is a love story. Can their love endure? That's the question that will be answered. I posted a small note about this story on my fanfic blog that goes along with the stories I write. If you're interested in checking it out, the link can be found on my profile page under "Blog." It's the first thing on the profile page. The post for this story is archived under May 2010 and is called _"Linger" and Grieving. _

Again, thank you for the time you invest into reading the story. I'd love to hear what you think of it!

Stephanie


	5. Beneath

**EPOV**

I managed to make it only a mile before a whip of lighting filled the sky, followed a moment later by a crack of thunder and the rolling rain. My hair was drenched and my clothes soaked by the time I stood in front of the thin iron gates of the cemetery. They weren't locked. The archway over the threshold was overcome with ivy, now dripping with the cold tears offered from above.

I entered and walked without thinking where I was going. I could simply _sense_ where she was. Some feeling called out to me, like a slow, familiar rhythm. It was one I had been so attuned to once before. It was… her heartbeat.

_Phantom noises_, I sulked.

I shook my head to try to get the sound out. I knew it was all in my mind, but it wouldn't leave. The steady, resting thrumming was once the heart's pace of my sleeping love. Now she was asleep eternally; would I always be subject to this sad bedlam?

I looked around at the marble and stone fixtures. Sculpted angels with open arms… others with lamenting features and their hands over their hearts… and the gray stones shining from the rain beating down on them presently… all of these things seemed for Bella the wrong companions. They were cold and hard – like me, I suppose. Yet they did not love her as _I_ did; as _I_ could.

My body was pulled toward a stone where the ground was just beginning to settle. Grass had not yet begun to grow fully in front of her headstone yet.

_January_.

That was the month of her death.

It was only April now… nearly May. I knelt in front of her name and stared at it for the longest while. The engraved letters were cold and monumental.

"I hadn't thought to bring flowers."

It was all I could think to say at the time. I had hoped that Jacob was not thinking clearly when he thought of what had happened. There was always the chance that what he remembered was not true, and I had clung to that tiny hope. Yet, as it was, this was the gray reality.

Her heartbeat was still echoing in my ears. Or, in the ears of my mind rather than my physical ears. I looked around me as if an extravagant bouquet of flowers might simply present itself. Then I remembered the trinket I had to offer.

I searched my pocket for the pendant I bought while in the exile I had made for myself. I bought it from an old woman in a street market. She said she could tell I needed something that would bring me forgiveness and tried to convince me that she had the perfect stone for such a need. I knew she was merely trying to do anything to make a quick buck, but the idea of forgiveness, security, peace of mind and spiritual wisdom sounded so delicious at the time. She said that the purple stone wrapped in the silver wire represented these things. I handed her a few bills from my pocket and took the Brazilian Amethyst crystal point pendant and a silver chain to carry it on. I had imagined it on Bella a hundred times since its purchase, but now I knew full well that she would never actually be able to wear it.

I pulled it out of my pocket and pushed it into the unsettled earth. I supposed the rain would help shift the dirt into place more quickly, encasing the now rotting corpse of the woman I dreamed might one day be my bride. But she would never _really_ be mine to hold. I looked at the dates again and determined that eighteen years was far too meager a time for someone with so much energy and heart.

I could hardly help but think of how all that would be left of her was dry flesh pulled tight over brittling bones. If one were to pull her skin, it might very well rip, like a cloth. The morbidity was eating at me and I wished I could find a way to undo the chaos I had caused. I hugged her stone, wishing that it was instead her. I didn't want to leave it. I never wanted to leave this place. This is where she was. I knew her body lay beneath.

_Beneath._

Oh God! Her blood was on my hands! Murder... murder... murder...

"Murder!" I cried. I rubbed my hands together, "Out, out, damn spot!"

I still couldn't wrap my mind around this. I was up here; she, down there. I sat on the ground and leaned into the rock that marked her memory. I pulled at my hair and groaned wildly. My rigid shoulders relaxed suddenly, and I tried to breathe. Another crack of thunder struck and the rain began to pour more heavily.

Perhaps the irony, if there was any to be found, stood in the fact that we were _both_ dead now.

Now that I had only her memory, I decided to pull out her journal and resume my torture. The water was drenching the pages, but I didn't care. I had to listen to what she would have told me, if she only had the chance to.

_There is a racket in my mind. I don't know what causes it. I guess I sort of do, actually, know what it is. It is craziness, I think. It must be that. There is no other way to explain it. I sometimes think I see him. I know he's not really there, but I hear my window open. I roll over only to find it is closed. I leave it unlocked, though – just in case. I wish and hope he'll come back again. It is all I want. I would give anything for that. Anything. _

I turned the wet pages and found another section.

_I can't bring myself to look in the mirror anymore. Every time I do, all I see is the girl who wasn't good enough for him. If I were beautiful, he might still be with me. He might have wanted me then. But I have nothing to offer. No wonder he left._

I turned to the next page and continued.

_I dreamed that I saw him standing in our meadow. I tried to find that place again, but now I'm wondering if it ever really existed at all. There is nobody for me to talk to about him. I lost more than I can even say. There is no one out there to understand this. This isn't usual. That's what my dad says. But he doesn't realize that none of this was _ever_ usual. Edward was not _usual_. I miss him so much and I wonder if he ever thinks about me – but why would he? _

I turned another page.

_He's not coming back. I _have_ to face that fact. But I can't believe that. If I do, I'll die. _

I threw the open book down into the mud. I couldn't read on any longer. I couldn't stand any more. I was startled at how the thrumming noise quickened. The heartbeat was once so steady that I had managed to forget that it was there. Now that I was no longer distracted by her journal, it sounded as if she had run a great distance. I was sure the noise was in my head, but it seemed to be coming from below me.

I lowered my ear to the ground and listened. I felt like a fool when a woman walked by and saw me.

"Listening for something?" she asked with one eyebrow quirked.

I stood up quickly and brushed the mud off my slacks as much as I was able.

"I thought I heard something," I admitted to the stranger.

There was something so _familiar_ about her, but something very _strange_ too. I tried to listen into her, but her thoughts were very difficult to read. She thought in colors and flavors; in sweet smells and bitter smells; in emotions and wild visions. At first there appeared to be no system of logic in her mind, but as she began to _interpret_ me, things became very clear.

This woman had seen Bella on the night she died. She was remembering back on how Bella _felt_. It was heartbreaking to bear. I saw in her memory that underneath her unbuttoned coat was that t-shirt (now but a stained and ratty rag).

This woman had absorbed Bella's feelings that night, and I could feel through her the deep longing that Bella had for our eventual reunion – the one that she was so sure might one day come. The hope was so heart-warming and allowed me to forget my situation for a moment. For the tiniest fraction of a time I wondered if Bella and I would find a way to prevail.

When the woman began to think on other things, the hopeful memory left and darkness overcame me once again. I was reminded of the empty body that Jacob had witnessed and the cold headstone that screamed silently behind me.

"Who are you?" I asked the woman.

She was dressed in a long blue skirt and a green wrap now, but I tried to imagine her in a yellow dress with gray hair piled high on an older face. I was so sure that this was the woman who had sold me the pendant I pushed into the earth just moments earlier. She carried a basket of assorted flowers, all bunched together and tied neatly with a lavender cord.

"These are for you," she said.

"For me?" I asked.

"Yes. You didn't bring any for her grave," she said, nodding toward Bella's headstone. "I knew that you would be empty-handed; well, except for the necklace. I knew you'd at least have enough sense to bring that with you."

"The pendant?" I asked.

She held out the basket of flowers and waited for me to take them.

"You'll ruin it if you let it sit in the mud and the rain like that," she said as she looked toward Bella's journal.

"It's not worth saving anyway," I said as I finally relieved her of the flowers.

"Not worth saving?" she scolded hotly. "You would have yourself believe that you are so concerned with how she _felt_. Well, her feelings are impressed all over that relic. What's not to save about it?"

"She was so sad when she wrote those things," I argued.

She walked over to it and picked it up. She made an attempt to dry it off with her wrap, but it was also wringing wet. The wet green wool did very little good at actually drying the journal, but I knew it was the gesture of it that mattered. She handed me the book and I slipped it in my pocket.

"You don't seem to understand the value of things," she said, shaking her head.

Was she talking _down_ to me?

"You don't look like you did before," I said. I figured I might as well point out the obvious and maybe she would give me an explanation.

"I know," was all she said.

I grabbed the flowers out of the basket and turned to lay them on Bella's grave.

"Where do I go from here?" I asked the woman. "I don't understand what's happening to me."

"You mean, because you see her sometimes?"

I wondered how she knew these things, but I couldn't discern her thoughts. They were chaotic like smoke. I was beginning to think that I wouldn't be able to read anything from her unless she wanted to be read.

"You never told me who you are," I said.

"You're right about that."

"Well?" I asked.

"Well?" she countered. I stared at her in disbelief. "My name is Nya," she said, "If that's what you want to know."

"And the necklace?" I asked.

"What about it?"

"You were someone else when you sold it to me."

"No, Edward. I was the same Nya. I am _always_ the same Nya. Just like your Bella is always the same Bella. Don't get confused by what's in there," she said, pointing to the ground before Bella's headstone. "It's only her body down there. Where _she_ actually is, well, that's another story."

I waited for her to continue, but she didn't.

"What's the story, then?" I asked. It should have been obvious that I would want to know, so why not just say it?

"Tell me, Edward," she began, "You've _felt_ her, right? You've felt her presence? You've felt her warm breath? You've felt her soft, gentle fingers comb through your hair?"

"I have," I answered while nodding my head. "I _have_ felt those things."

"But her body is in the ground?"

I wasn't sure what she was really asking me or what she was trying to get at with all the riddles.

"I don't know," I confessed. "_Is_ it?"

She nodded her head. _God! Then why did she even ask?_ She smiled a little and almost laughed. I was not pleased that she was amused by my confusion and anguish.

"Her body _is_ in the ground, yes. But that does not necessarily mean that she is in the ground, Edward. If her spirit were still in her body, she wouldn't need to be in a casket. Her spirit lives on and is capable of more than you can imagine."

I wondered if her spirit could have a pulse. I wondered if it could touch me and breathe on me and convince my mind that she was beside me.

"Is any of this real?" I asked desperately.

"Are you asking if I'm telling you the truth?" She reached her hand out and waited for me to return her basket.

"I believe that you are telling me the truth," I replied.

"Then what are you really asking me?"

"I guess… I'm just asking if… if I don't have to be afraid. There is so much pain that comes from the separation. I mean, I knew I was away from her when I was gone, but knowing that her body is in the ground right under my feet… I just _can't_ deal with that. It's something else entirely. I suppose what I'm asking is if Bella and I can ever be together again."

"Together?"

I nodded and handed her the basket. "Yes. Together."

"You want to hold her again; I understand that desire. You want things to go back to the way they once were. Tell me, _what_ would you be willing to do, or give, for that to be possible?"

…

A/N: "Out, out damn spot." If that line sounds familiar, it should. It is the famous line of Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth. She desperately tried to wash the metaphorical blood from her hands to rid herself of her guilt. Likewise, Edward desires riddance from his emotional pains.

There is also a very subtle reference to _Phantom of the Opera's _lines from _Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again_: "Passing bells and sculpted angels, cold and monumental/Seem for you the wrong companions; you were warm and gentle."

Originally I was going to name this chapter _Her Grave_. I decided against it, only because the idea of her lying beneath his feet was so… _haunting_ and not quickly forgotten. I wanted the emphasis to be on her still body rather than the stone that marks where she is laid to rest. I hope you weren't disgusted by Edward's morbid thoughts, but one of the things I learned about grieving (in making a non-formal study of the process) is that it is not uncommon to think about the bodies of a deceased loved one, especially if they were dearly loved. It is actually an initial step in the healing process. Researchers wonder at how the human psyche sometimes needs to be shocked first in order to accept difficult realities and I only included those gruesome details to make his feelings more validated and realistic. Seriously though, I do apologize if I grossed anyone out.

As always, thank you for reading! Until next time,

Stephanie

P.S. There _is_ a way for them to be together again, and we all know that Edward would do _anything_ to restore Bella. I wonder, though, how far would he be willing to go exactly? I guess that's the question that will be answered next…


	6. Bella's Water

**EPOV**

"_I suppose what I'm asking if Bella and I can ever be together again."_

_"Together?"_

_I nodded and handed her the basket. "Yes. Together."_

_"You want to hold her again; I understand that desire. You want things to go back to the way they once were. Tell me, __what__ would you be willing to do, or give, for that to be possible?"_

"Anything!" I answered immediately. "_Anything_."

"Would you now?" she asked slowly. "Yes, I can see that you would. It is in the candor of your simple desperation. But I wonder if you are _really _prepared to do what it will take? Strange things lie down the path you will go. I wonder if you will really _want_ to do these things?"

"I already told you: I will do _anything _to bring her back to me. Tell me, please, what it is I should do to be with her again?"

"Look around you," she whispered. "What do you see?"

I scanned around the graveyard and saw the rain splashing against the cold, hard stones of the dead. The statues looked like they were crying as the water slid down the curvatures of their hard, unfeeling faces.

"Water," I replied.

"Water… _yes_. Now look again, and see more _water_."

My eyes crossed over the same path, but moved downward as soon as I saw the ground fade away only to be replaced with waves.

"Where are we?" I asked.

"We are still where we were," she explained calmly. "You are seeing it in a different way. Listen and tell me what you hear."

I listened to the steady waves. Something inside of me jerked with liveliness as I recognized its rhythm: it was her breathing body. Was her soul waiting for me in these surging waters? Each time they rose to crash against my chest, I imagined she was pushing against me.

"I hear her," I said.

"Do you?" Nya pressed.

"I hear her breathing," I confirmed. "I _hear_ it!" I laughed as the tragedy of her death magnified my already limitless love.

"How do you _feel_?" she asked.

"I want her," I said. "If I can't have her back, at least let me die! Perchance I might be relieved with a complete loss of consciousness. If to hell I am destined - as many claim is so for my kind - then to hell I shall willingly go. No state of torture could be more acute than where I already stand in this moment: to hear her breathing and know it isn't really so. I hear her and I've touched her… _she's_ touched _me_… but if it's not real, if it's not as things really are, then let me die now."

I laughed again, not knowing exactly why. I felt sure now that I was in a state of madness, but if I was aware of being crazy, was I still crazy? Didn't the truly crazy deny it? I didn't even dare try to defend my condition at this point. I was willing to accept it for what it really was: insanity.

"Are these waters real?" I asked.

"Real?"

"I was in the graveyard. Now I'm in the ocean, or a sea, or something. Am I imagining the water or is it really, truly all around me? Am I standing _on_ _top of_ water?"

She stretched her hands in the air and I fell through. The current took my legs and pulled me deep.

"_Are you imagining the waters?"_ she thought.

"I don't know," I said with the last bit of air I had. The bubbles captured the light from above in strange ways as they traveled to the surface.

"_You don't _know_?" _she questioned. _"Are you wet? Can you breathe? Is it as if you are really under water?"_

I nodded my head. She dove in after me.

"_If it feels like what it is and creates consequences because of what it is, then is it what it is?"_ she thought, staring me in the face.

Our bodies began to move upward. It was as if the sea was literally spitting us out of itself and we once again stood on top of it. I gasped for air so that I could speak.

"Nya," I said. "Does it mean it is real?"

"It _is_ real," she replied. "But it is not good enough for you because it is in your mind. You are really standing on the water and yet, you are _really_ standing in the cemetery."

"Was Bella in my mind? I saw her for many nights. We touched and kissed and talked sweetly to one another. Was that really her?"

"It was really her," she nodded. "Not her body, though, but yes, to be perfectly candid with you: it was her."

"She was there, but not alive?"

"_She_ was there, but her body is not alive. Her body wasn't there. Her spirit was, and it lives on. Part of the human condition is imminent death, as you are well aware. In a mortal condition, the feared reaper always waits somewhere in the wings. It was only a matter of time before your love came to be as she is. You think you hear her heart beating in these waters. It is because these are the waters where she died."

I looked around and saw no cliffs to be jumped from and no shores to be washed upon.

"Waters move, Edward. They move on. They bring life to the dust and they can push death into the lungs of dust too, suffocating that dust until it is too useless to carry life any longer. But still, the waters move on… always moving, always going and never feeling any sort of pride or sorrow for the work they accomplish. The water is where Bella met her death. It is in the water that she will find her life again. You must take the water to her."

"How do I do that?"

She handed me a slender vial with a top encased in precious stones.

What was this woman telling me? Was I to _literally _take this water to Bella? Was I to rob her from the greedy ground?

"How?" I asked, taking the vial and dipping into the liquid.

"You already know the answer to that," she said forcefully. Did she not want to actually _say_ it? Did she believe that by not voicing the taboo, it would somehow be less so?

"Dig her up?" I asked.

"And die beside her," she amended. "You must revive her with the water and drink the poison that forms from her death and her life meeting."

"And I shall die?" I asked. "My body is already…"

"Yes," she said. "I know. Your body is already dead. But you must change again. This is what will change you."

"What will I be changed into then, if I do this?"

"_If_?" she tisked sadly. "Do you want to see her again or not, Edward?"

"I want to see her alive again and I want to be with her."

"Then do what you know must be done. It is hard to think on, and not a _usual_ thing to do. That is very true. But if others could do for the ones they love what you have the power to do for the one you love, then most of the graves in the world would be vacant. Remove her from where she is."

"Where does this power come from?" I asked.

"Is it evil? Is that what you mean, Edward?" she asked with a knowing smile.

"_Is_ it?" I asked.

"Is it wrong to take someone out of the ground and restore them to a condition where you can be with them together forever? Is that wrong?"

"What will it _cost_ me?" I asked. "What will be the consequences?"

"She will be your Bella- the one you've always known and loved. That will never change. Nothing more or less than Isabella Marie Swan will enter into the flesh in that grave. I think what you really want to know is why is this so _easy_?"

I nodded my head.

"It will not be _easy_," she laughed. "This will be difficult to do. There will be _something_ pulling you away from your aim. Death will be angry when you attempt to rob her from him. He is as natural as the sunrise and sunset, and he does not _easily_ allow his verdicts to be overturned."

"Death is… a _person_?" I asked.

"Death is a concept and utilizes the forces of nature to make itself personified. Does that answer your question?"

I sort of nodded my head, but was not sure if I could commit to a solid answer either way.

"Your Bella knew what you would have to endure to get her back. It is something she would rather you be spared from. That is why she came to you in the night and left you during the day. If you should fail… oh Edward, this will not be _easy_! The concept is easy enough, but the actual procession will bring on so much physical pain and mental suffering. Others have drunk from this knowledge, but have spewed it back up. They were unable to keep it down, so to speak. They are now rotten themselves. They live, but what constitutes life? I would argue that they are not alive anymore. They certainly aren't themselves. Where did who-they-were-before go off to? I wager they must have rolled into their madness until having blacked out for good. Now they are ravenous and illogical. That could very well be _your_ fate if you begin this process but do not end it properly. I suppose my advice to you is this: do not give up. If you start this, do not give up. Do _not_ fail or your situation will actually be worse than what it now is. You will be lost to Bella and she was afraid to risk that. She was satisfied with visiting you in the night and leaving in the day because at least she got to see you regularly. Fail at this attempt, Edward, and she will never see you again. End of story."

I placed the gemmed cork into the vial to seal Bella's water securely therein. Not a drop would not come out again until it was time to give it to her.

"I _will_ do this thing," I stated boldly. "I will not give up. I love her too much to give up."

"I have faith that you will do it," she said. "I don't think anyone else has what you have on your side. No one else has… _all that they need_ as _you_ do."

"What do you suppose my sister meant?" I asked, knowing she would already know about Alice's special talents.

"You mean when she said that 'no good' will come from your returning to Forks?" she asked.

"Yes. Won't Bella coming back be good?"

"If you can get her back, then yes, it will be very good."

"Did Alice see me failing? Does she think I will not be able to do it?"

"Alice sees the future based on what people's choices may be in that current thousandth of a second. Tell me, were you resolved to get her back then?"

"I didn't even know she was dead yet."

"But you know now. And you know that there is a way for you to take her away from Death's grip. Now that you know?"

"Now that I know, I _am_ sure I can and will get her back."

"Perhaps her vision is changed?"

I shrugged. Maybe so, but even if it hadn't, it wouldn't stop me from trying this. I was prepared to face whatever demon might throw himself at me, and I would deal with the monsters when they came. Whatever it was, whatever thing I was called to fight or pass by, I would. If I didn't succeed then at least I knew I wouldn't be throwing away the only opportunity I had to be with Bella again.

The waters cleared away and we were standing back in the graveyard. The earth gave no evidence of having just been flooded. The only evidence I had of what just took place was the vial.

I looked at Bella's headstone. Here no longer would she lie.


	7. Her Body

**EPOV**

"I am terrible," I muttered. At that time, I felt that this was an absolute truth. _I am a terrible person in these, my truest moments. What I must do only serves to remind me of what I really am. _"I am terrible."

I had waited until the darkness was thick to do what I knew I would do.

My first instinct, when penetrating her grave in the dark, starless night, was to destroy myself. I felt a constant pinch in my heart and asked myself if what I was doing really mattered. I knew that Bella was really out there somewhere; not underneath me. Additionally, I knew that if I separated myself from my own body that she would truly be alone then. If I ended it all for myself then there would be no way that we could be together again. I couldn't leave her that way forever, and it was that logic that kept me going as I did this terrible thing.

It wasn't long before my shovel scraped against the shiny finished wood. I suddenly burst into a stubborn, whimpering cry.

"I am terrible!" I cried loudly. "I am so sorry and I am terrible!"

I was afraid to look at her. I was afraid of the guilt that would surely overtake me and from the odors that would rise from her decayed flesh. I was terrified to look on her lifeless form; simply terrified.

As I prepared to break the seal, I had to remind myself that she was not really in there. _She is a wandering spirit_, I thought to comfort my mind. _Her world is not a dungeon, damp and small. She may roam wherever she pleases. Her soul is not confined to a small box. _

I felt a lump in my throat as I tried to swallow back my fears. I heard the beating of an ancient tune and knew that Death was waiting in the darkness. He was waiting for me to initiate the conflict. I was going to take her away from here: there was no doubt in my mind about that. I would rob her from the ground. I would rob her soul out of its natural course and restore it to her flesh. At what cost? I didn't care. I was a man of much money and property and for all I cared, that could pass away in her stead. It was _her_ I wanted, and _only_ her. I would give everything up for our reunion.

"Take everything I have," I offered the mysterious persona, hoping I might be able to make a fair trade.

I laughed at the thought. _Fair?_ Nothing about what I was doing was fair. Not to Death and not to Nature, but screw everything: I would have my Bella back. It was not money that Death wanted. What use would money serve him? It wasn't my property he wanted either. He would only want to keep what was rightfully his. But she was _mine_ first, and I wasn't going to let him have her.

I pushed my courage to the front of my mind and did what I had to do. I opened her casket.

I was in awe of what I saw before me. Her skin was still beautiful; it shimmered like silk. Her lips were a strange pink and her long lashes curled slightly at their ends. She looked like she was sleeping. I brushed my fingers over her folded hands. They were still _warm_. Had she not been fully consumed by Death after all? Where were the telltale signs of Nature setting in?

"Bella?" I whispered, wondering if she might open her eyes and smile at me.

She didn't.

"Bella?" I asked again.

I wondered about Nya. We parted ways when I left to retrieve a shovel and wait for night to come so that I could do this without anyone witnessing. I had half expected her to be waiting for me beside Bella's headstone when I returned, but she was nowhere to be found. I wished she were here now so that I might ask her what was going on. Did she know about Bella's physical condition? Did she know that she would be this way?

I took Bella's warm, pliable body in my arms and exited the chasm. I held her close to me as I kicked the dirt down so that I could cover my morbid tracks. I left her empty casket and the shovel deep in the refilled earth. The necklace had fallen to the wayside as I had dug, and I bent down to pick it up as soon as I saw it. I placed it in my pocket next to the precious vial. I ran quickly back to the house that I had once called a home.

All the lights were off and the furniture covered, as it always was when we left for extended periods of time. I entered the living room and placed Bella on the couch. The lights flipped on suddenly and Alice stepped forward. She looked horrified.

"Oh my God, Edward!" she gasped with fright. She was looking earnestly between Bella and me. "What have you _done_?"


	8. Open

**EPOV**

"_What have you done?"_

I felt angry at having been so immediately judged. If she had lost Jasper to Death, there would be no doubt about it: _his_ corpse would be lying on this covered couch right now.

"Oh, Edward," she sighed sadly. All of her panic faded, giving way to genuine pity. "Why?"

"I will do anything to keep her."

I knelt down beside Bella's body and brushed her hair out of her face.

"I know you will, brother."

"Are you going to try to stop me?"

I heard her believe that there was no emotion in my question: no anger; no fear; nothing at all. If it seemed that way, it really wasn't. I had _every_ emotion churning through me in that hour. I was indifferent to her opinion; that's all. I didn't care if she would _try_ to stop me. The fact was that nothing _could_.

"It will do no use to try," she replied after some diligent thought.

I wondered what she saw me doing that would make her say that. _I_ didn't even know what I might yet do. I hadn't planned on there being anyone else present for this. She must not have known what to expect, though, because her mind was nearly blank.

She spent several minutes scanning through the possibilities of what she _might _say, but she always saw responses from me that she wasn't satisfied with. Too long of a time went by where she said nothing at all: _more_ awkward silences that were not so silent now that her mind was in my presence.

"Don't practice like that," I said. "Just say whatever you actually _want_ to say. Just tell me what you want to. Be open with me, Alice."

"I…" she stuttered. She was surprised that these words would come from my mouth at a time like this.

"Tell me," I pressed her. "I don't care if what you have to say would normally hurt my feelings or make me angry. Honestly, I'm past those emotional markers. My grief has taken me further than I have ever been before. Anger and annoyance could barely weigh in at this point."

She allowed her visions to cease as she focused only on how she felt.

"I'm afraid," she confessed.

"Of?"

"Of all of this. Of _her_." She pointed to Bella. "I've never seen anything like this. I've never imagined… I'm just… surprised, I guess."

"I think I might be afraid too."

"This seems so sudden, doesn't it? After all, you've only just heard the sad news this morning. You haven't had time to process any of this, have you?" she asked.

_Sudden?_

"But it's _not_ sudden, is it, Alice? How long have _you_ known about Bella's death? Tell me the truth."

"I saw her die before she did- but only moments before. I had no way to get to her in time. We weren't close enough to save her. It was a matter of physical distance. That's all. That's what depresses me the most. If I were by her side, she would not have died. I never would have allowed her to walk off the edge like she did."

"The others: do they know?"

"No. I can't bring myself to actually tell them. I've carried this secret alone since it happened in January."

I saw a glimmer of a memory slip loose from where she was hiding things from me still.

"And _other secrets_ too, right?" I asked.

I saw that she had pressed her hand against the hand of Bella's spirit _after_ Bella was buried. She was trying to cover up the thought, but it was too late; I had already memorized every detail of what she let herself remember.

"I…" she stuttered again.

"Alice," I coaxed, "I had hoped that I made this clear already; you don't _have_ to be afraid of what my reaction will be to any of this. Will you please tell me what you remember? Just tell me the truth?"

Her tense shoulders relaxed and her eyes opened more fully. "Okay," she agreed. "I will tell you all that I know."

She sat on the floor beside me and stared at Bella's body for a moment before beginning her tale.

"I'm sorry that I didn't tell you. I probably should have, but I chose not to because I assumed there might be the chance that you would stay away from this town forever and that you would never find out about her death. At least, not until you revisited in eighty and some odd years. You would have anticipated her death at such a later date and it would not be such a shock to you. That is why I didn't tell you about her death."

I nodded my head, letting her know that there was no need for animosity between us on this point.

"I came back to visit her grave just a couple of weeks ago. It was the second week of April, I believe. So, yes, it's been almost two weeks. I knew she would be dead, but I had to see it for myself. I wondered if maybe my vision had been incorrect. You know how that sometimes happens now and then, and I was so much hoping that it would be that way this time, but it wasn't. I went to the cemetery and there was no one else around, but it _felt_ like there was someone there. It felt like it was her, but I knew that didn't make any sense. I decided to speak directly to her and apologize for our leaving her in such a terrible frame of mind. I could have sworn that she was trying to comfort me- letting me know that none of this was my fault. I was suffering from the guilt that naturally comes from leaving a loved one to die alone. I insisted that it was my fault and I could feel her inviting me to confess how much I had loved her like a sister. It sounds strange, I know, but I stood up and moved around her headstone, looking for her! And… and I found her!"

"It doesn't sound that strange to me," I said.

"I felt her hand against mine, Edward! Do you hear what I am telling you? It was like she was really, _physically _there in that graveyard with me!"

"I hear loud and clear, Alice. I've felt her too. I've felt her arms around me and her hands through my hair. I've spoken with her."

"You've… _spoken_ with her?"

"Yes. At first I thought it was only some extreme thing that my mind was conjuring up to comfort itself. I didn't realize that it was actually _her_. I thought if I returned to Forks then I could keep that 'made up' part of her with me forever instead of having her visit only in the night. I dreaded each time the sun rose because it meant she would leave me. So, I came back to learn how to keep her. I didn't expect to also learn that she was… dead."

"_Is _she dead though?"

We both turned and looked at her again. I was not so afraid now. Alice being here was a great force of reassurance, and knowing that Alice had touched her spirit too made everything less discomforting than it had been just moments ago.

"It's empty, Alice," I said, referring to Bella's body. "She's not in there. I think that means she's dead."

"But we are in our bodies, and we're dead, technically."

"We're cold and bloodless," I said.

"But _she's_ not, Edward. She's warm somehow. And she's retained her color. What does that mean?"

"Honestly, Alice, I don't know what any of this means."

"She looks _asleep_," Alice whispered to herself.

I pulled the vial out of my pocket and explained what Nya had said. I told her of how the cemetery seemed to flood suddenly and of how water surrounded me and of how that experience was, for all intents and purposes, _real_.

"So, you've brought her here and you have the water… but is there anything else you need?"

"Nya said it would be a difficult road, but so far, nothing has happened to make it so. She also said that I would have all that I need. I'm assuming I just need to pour the water through her lips or something?"

My sister shrugged in response as I tried to remove the jeweled cork from the slender vial.

"I can't seem to get it," I murmured.

"What? Here, let me try."

I handed her the bottle and expected her to open it with ease. But then, I had expected that _I_ would be able to open it with ease too.

"I… _can't_…" she said in her struggle. "Should we break it open?" she suggested.

That didn't feel right to me. "No, I don't think so."

"How did you open it the first time to get the water in?"

"I just slid the top out. It wasn't stuck like it is now."

There was a sudden tapping at the front door. Alice and I both stared at one another in surprise.

"I didn't see anyone coming," she said.

"Can you not see who it will be?" I asked.

She shook her head. "No. I can't see anything."

"Can you at least see us getting this vial open?"

She focused on that thought for a second before replying, "No. I mean, I can't see one way or the other. It's like my visions have gone blind or something!"

"Alright," I said. "Remain calm. I will answer the door and see who it is. You stay here with Bella's body. Don't leave her side for any reason."

I stood up and walked through the entryway to the large door. I cracked it open and peered out.

"Who's there?" I asked.

"It is I," said a familiar voice. "Nya."

I opened the door further and let her enter.

"I'm actually really glad that you're here," I said. I closed and locked the door behind her. "I've done as you've instructed so far, but I'm unsure about the specifics at this point."

"As the case always is," she nodded. "Bella will be here soon. She will help guide you."

The last time I saw Bella was the night before. I hadn't known then that she was the way she was. I didn't expect her to come to me tonight, though. I figured her body would be reoccupied before her spirit had the chance to visit again.

I guided Nya to the living room. She headed straight over to Bella's body as soon as she saw it.

"She is so… lifelike," she whispered.

"Is that usual?" I asked.

"None of this is usual, dear boy," she smiled.

"I know that," I said. "What I mean is… for others who have tried to do this… the bodies of their loved ones- were they like hers?"

"No," she said. "No, none of them ever were like _this_."

"What do you two mean? What _others_ have there been?" Alice asked in alarm.

"Alice," Nya interrupted with a smile, "I have waited to meet you for what seems like ages. I am happy to be here tonight, assisting in any way that I can."

"Can you tell me what is meant by _others_ who have tried to do this?"

"None have ever succeeded," Nya started to explain. "You see, the concept of reviving the deceased is not a traditional one, first of all. Secondly, those who were informed of this procedure in past ages, well… none have made it out whole before. At least, none have been documented to my knowledge."

"What do you mean by _whole_?" Alice asked.

"They've gone crazy," I answered. "No one has ever brought someone back before. Is that correct, Nya?"

"Well," she said with a shrug, "Someone has been brought back successfully before. Yet, the tragedy lies in the fact that the one who brought her back killed himself doing it."

"Who?" Alice asked. "Who was brought back?"

Nya smiled sheepishly.

"You?" I asked. "_You_ were brought back?"

"Yes," she answered simply. "But my remains were not so, um, _well preserved_ as these. I don't know why her body is this way, but let's take advantage of it by looking on the bright side: this will be far less grotesque than I had planned on."

"What was it like?" Alice asked. "On the other side, I mean."

"When I passed to the other side, I was in a certain state of rest. I wasn't sick or in pain of any kind as I had been in my mortality. I was happy for that, but sad because I would see all the others I had left behind going on with their day-to-day lives. There was nothing I could do to let them know I stood beside them most of the time. Well, there was _one_ person who seemed to be more sensitive to my presence. He was my husband. He thought he had lost his mind the first time he really saw me, but he was happy because he would rather have been in a state of madness with me for company than to be all alone. When I finally convinced him that I was truly there and that he was conversing with _me_ and not anything other than me, he was overjoyed. He searched the world over to discover a way to revive me. I had been gone for nearly a year at that point. It took him three and a half more years to find ancient documents that illustrated the process to bring me home to him and another year to be able to translate the language so that we could understand the concepts behind this strange magic. What he labored so hard to find is the very process that we will be using to bring your Bella back to you."

Alice handed me the slender vial.

"I am obligated to warn you that you will have a terrible time between here and where Bella is. There is a barrier of sorts that keeps the living parted from the dead. Extreme emotional pressures will try to force you to turn around and give up. If you do, though, you will not exit the same man, Edward. You will lose your mind. I don't know if there has or hasn't been any success with both partners living before. That certainly wasn't the case with me and my husband. He is somewhere between here and the land of the dead still. His body is unconscious and hidden away, but his mind has not fully crossed over. For him, he was lost to that in-between state. If you go to get her, go all the way. Do not hesitate and do not expect any support of any kind. Everything and anyone you meet along the way will only be out to get you. Don't trust your senses, either. What seems to be around you is not really there. You will lie on this floor and that is where you will _really _be the whole time. If you perceive that your body has gone somewhere else, don't buy into it. It's not things as they really are."

"How will I know if I succeed?" I asked.

"You will know," she answered. "You will know. You will get Bella and you will come back, and you will know."

"Just one problem," Alice said. "We can't get the vial open."

Nya shook her head and gave half a laugh.

"That, my dear, will be the very least of our worries."

…

A/N: This chapter is called _Open_ because Alice and Edward are completely open with one another here, and because that is what they can't do to the vial: open it.

Thanks for reading and a special thank you to: tinyflickers, SanCutie, ronni2729, Twilightfan108, mommybrook, CatieLardin, luv4jake, Princess Mishawaka, Jasper's Darlin' Kathy, drvctry, ecxe, ChatdeChance, Bella Baby24, Jits, TeamBellaCullen, bamagal110, IGOTEAMEDWARD, SweetNonesense, TillITryI'llNeverKnow, Nurseratchet, TF298, annaofthedawn, Bani93, and barbiedoll123. Thank you so much for being the first reviewers of this work! What each and every reviewer has to say is very meaningful to me. Again, thank you.

With love and until next time,

Stephanie


	9. In

**EPOV**

I sat in the living room and waited.

Alice and Nya had gone to the kitchen. Alice was rummaging through the pantry and the drawers to see if there was anything she might be able to offer Nya to eat or drink. Actually, I suspected that they didn't want to be there when Bella's spirit arrived. It was kind that they would give me time to have her to myself before I would embark on a journey that Nya insisted would be most difficult to endure. Yet, I was not anxious or fearful of traveling wherever I might to bring Bella back to this world.

"_Who she is has passed on, Edward,"_ Nya had insisted. _"She is still very sad. In the world she is in now, other lovers are united for eternity. Some of those who surround her have waited decades to be reunited with their loved ones, but they are together in that next life because they so greatly loved one another in this mortal life. But Bella- she couldn't bring herself to hope for such a sweet reunion, for how could she ever taste such a fruit? It is no longer in your nature to die as a mortal can."_

It did bring me a sharp degree of aching to hear that Bella never planned on us being together again. Yet, that was only because she didn't realize how much I love her. Had she known all along, she would still be alive. Nya had also explained that she would feel embarrassed and ashamed of what she had done. That she might not _want_ to come back because of her feelings of guilt and humiliation. I would find her and convince her to come back. As I waited for her to come to me, I thought of all the things I would say to her: of how much I loved her and always have loved her; of how I don't want to go on without her; of how she will be the only woman I could ever conceive of loving; of how I would give anything in the world for her to come home with me. I would get down on my knees and beg her if that's what it would take. Whatever it takes – anything – I will do.

An hour passed before she entered the living room. I could see her standing behind me in the reflection off of the large windows. I turned, but could not find her.

"Edward," she whispered.

I turned back around and faced the window. She was there- in the window itself, it seemed. I ran my fingers against the glass, trying to touch her.

"Are you really here?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Will you not come out of there?" I asked, referring to the window itself.

"You will have to come get me."

"Show me how," I begged.

"I will," she nodded. "But first, tell me _why_. Tell me why you are willing to do this silly, strange thing, Edward."

"What are you afraid of?" I asked, sensing her discomfort.

"You might never come back out again."

"I might not. But if I do it will only be if I have you with me."

"I'm afraid that I might be somewhere that you are not willing to go. Surely you know what I have done?"

"What have you done, Bella?"

"I…" She turned her head away? "I have killed myself, Edward. You knew that, didn't you?"

I was stunned. I knew she had done that, but I never expected for her to say it so bluntly. I hated hearing that from her lips, and I hated myself even more for being the one to have caused it.

"I don't care," I insisted. "Wherever you are, Bella, I will come to you. There is nothing I wouldn't do for you, and nowhere that I am not willing to go to get you back."

"Edward," she whimpered.

She placed her hand against mine. I could feel that it was warm, in a way.

"I am ready, Bella. Take me where I need to go."

"If you don't come back out, it will be all my fault. Please don't let that happen, Edward. Please. If something becomes too much for you and you have even the slightest feeling that you are losing the battle, please, for me, please, just leave. Just turn around and go back. I can't stand the thought of you being damaged forever because of something that I have done. I wouldn't have walked off that edge, Edward. I wouldn't have. I'm not completely sure why I did. I mean, I knew I was doing it. I know that. But I didn't realize that you still loved me. I'm so sorry for what I've done. Please forgive me."

Again, I was stunned. I had to calm down before I could figure out what to say or how to think clearly. She thought I didn't love her? Why was I so shocked in hearing that? I had let her think that when I left. I assumed it would have been for her own good; for her _safety_. How naïve I had been.

"There is nothing for me to forgive, Bella. Bring me in." She reached her hand out and I entwined my fingers in hers. She pulled me through the window and into the glass.

I heard Alice and Nya's voices somewhere in the distance.

"Edward?" they called over and over.

I looked back to see my own body lying on the ground. I turned to face Bella again.

"And for the record, just to be straight, I have _always_ loved you, Bella."

Some things just need to be made clear from the beginning.

…

A/N: Hello everyone! I am so sorry that I have been away for awhile. It's been super-busy on this side of the keyboard. I've learned to row a boat, started cooking real food (without the assistance of the microwave and from scratch!), had a garage sale, lost fifteen of the twenty pounds I wanted to shed and firmed up some, scrapbooked the heck out of my miscellaneous pics, and wrote all of my essays for my classes next semester (that's the great thing about being a Lit. major- you get to choose your topics, so I read the assignments and wrote everything in advance)! Anyway, now that I'm back in the groove of things, I would like to let you know that I plan on having several chapters for this story out by the end of this weekend, and possibly one or two for _Legerdemain_ as well. Until next time,

Stephanie

(*hugs*)


	10. Ignis Fatuus

**EPOV**

I didn't look back again.

I knew I was no longer in my body, and I heard the pleas of Alice and Nya begging me to wake up. Instead of doing what was probably the sensible thing and turning around to at least look or try to tell them I had already begun my journey, I simply took Bella's hand in mine and walked with her. I let her lead me along.

Not much time seemed to pass us by before we entered the shores of a sea through the opening of a cave. I hadn't realized that we were in a cave until I noticed that we were walking out of one. I shrugged and smiled.

"I'm happy to be here with you," I said.

"Are you?" Bella asked.

I nodded my head. "Of course I am."

"But you don't even know where we are."

"Tell me then: where are we?"

"This is where I spend most of my time. It is either here alone, or surrounded by happy couples who have rediscovered one another in death. I guess I prefer being here because this is where I feel least lonely."

I stared straight ahead at the waters. At first they smelled like rotten flesh, but then the fragrance turned sweet and attractive.

I looked above. Up where the sky ought to have been was a dome of hundreds – maybe even thousands – of mirrors. The reflections were twisted; strange but still very beautiful. Bella noticed me staring up at them.

"Those show me all of the places I could have gone in my life. Sometimes they show me marrying other men and having children and sometimes they show me going off to school abroad where I might have studied rare subjects. Yet, as exciting as those things may appear to be, the fact is that I would rather be here."

"Here? Alone?" I asked.

"Yes. I would rather be alone by these waters than with anyone who isn't _you_."

"Surely you can't mean that you're happier here?"

"I am," she said.

I looked back at the waters. We walked up to them until the small waves were lapping against our bare feet. I immediately stepped out of them when I realized what the water contained. No wonder they smelled of rotting decay!

"What is this?" I asked with alarm.

"These are the waters of the _other side_," she said calmly. "Every night, when I come to you, I must swim through them until I reach you. Sometimes it feels like a year goes by before I can manage to get to you, but I do it. I know you'll be on the other side waiting for me. I was always so surprised that you were _waiting _for me. I guess it just seems funny because the truth was that I always spent all of my time waiting for _you_."

"I'm so sorry, Bella." I was humiliated by the fact that she was _here_ and not out there in the world living her life. "Please, please forgive me."

"What for?"

"What _for_? For… for," I motioned all around us, "For all of _this_!"

The waves started creeping up closer to our ankles and I took another step back.

"Please, Bella, tell me," I took a gulp, wondering if I should really ask, "_What_ is in those waters?

"These waters contain remnants of the flesh of every single body that has been mortally ceased by water. Usually the bits stay at the bottom. I guess the current is a little stronger tonight, though. As for the water itself, it is made mostly of the oils from all the flowers that die. It's not _real_ water, you see."

I shuddered at the thought of what she was telling me. The floor of the water was not dirt or rock, but skin and body parts from people who suffered a miserable end.

"Why?" I asked.

"Why what?"

"Why is this water like this?"

"Edward," she giggled. I was more alarmed that she giggled and seemed to make sense of this place now than I had previously been disturbed by the actual idea of a sea of dismembered body parts. "Where do you think we are?"

"I really have no idea."

"It's okay," she said, rubbing my arm. "I know it's a terrible, crazy place. Believe me- I _know_. But it's not like it is back there, where we just came from. Rules for that world don't apply here. Things never add up the way they did once. Sometimes, though, if I just stop trying, things start to make a little sense. Here, let me show you what I mean."

She gripped my hand more tightly and led me along the shore to some large rocks.

"Look between them," she said.

I did as she advised. I saw _her_. She was lying in plush, green grass. Loose locks of her long, brown hair were catching the swirls of wind. She was writing in a notebook.

"What am I seeing?" I asked.

"Me."

"But you're right here, next to me."

"I know," she smiled. "But that's not me now. That's me several months ago. I remember that day. Shortly after I realized the fact that you were really not coming back for me and that you really would stay away from me forever, I decided to start writing in a journal. There was no one else out there in the world who could possibly understand the situation I found myself in. I know that sounds dramatic and extreme, but come on! You know our special circumstances- I mean, what they _were_. So anyway, I started writing…"

"I know," I interrupted.

Again I shuddered- this time at remembering her journal. I took another peek through the large rocks and noticed that she was crying. The sun was beginning to set, though the sky was covered by clouds anyway. I saw a flash of lightning immediately followed by the thunder and the rain. She didn't budge. She just kept writing. She covered the small notebook with her left hand while penning in it with her right. It was the only thing that remained remotely dry in the downpour of rain.

"You should have gone inside," I whispered to myself. "You could have taken a chill and become sick."

"I did," she whispered back. "I was ill for weeks after that day."

"Go inside!" I shouted between the rocks.

The Bella on the other side turned around suddenly and looked toward us. She closed the journal and put it in the pocket of her jacket. She stood up suddenly and began searching around the yard.

"I heard you then," she said.

"How could you have?" I asked.

"That remains the mystery, I guess."

The Bella on the other side kept walking around, searching.

"I was so sure that I heard you," Bella whispered. "So sure, in fact, that I just kept searching. I was out for hours."

"Hours?"

She nodded her head. "Mmhmm. I never did find you, though. Not until I was already dead."

The gap in the rocks seemed to be further apart that I had noticed before. I could make my way through, if I wanted to.

"Can I stop you from searching?" I asked. "Can I plead with you to go back inside the house?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know."

I slid through the gap in the rocks and stepped forward. Immediately, they closed behind me. There were no longer rocks, but an entrance to the forest just outside of Bella's home. In front of me was the searching Bella on the other side and her house. She was turned around, not facing me.

"Bella!" I called.

She gasped in shock.

"Edward?" she asked with wide eyes.

She ran toward me and put her hands on my chest, then moved them to my shoulders and down my arms.

"I can't believe it! It's _really_ you!"

"It is," I replied. "You should go inside. You're going to catch a chill."

"I don't care!" she cried, wrapping her arms around my neck. "I've missed you so much. Have you come back to me?"

"I don't know," I said.

"You… don't… _know_?" she said, releasing me from her embrace and looking down at her feet.

"I don't know where I am," I tried to clarify.

"What do you mean you don't know where you are? You're standing with _me_, in _my_ backyard, here in Forks. Remember? Forks? The town you left because I wasn't good enough for you?"

Her tone turned angry now.

"Bella," I said, trying to calm her down. She was growing hysterical.

"No!" she shouted. "I should have known better! God!"

"I'm here," I said.

"But for how long?" she argued. "How long until you just up and leave me again? I wasn't good enough for you before, so why the _fuck_ are you standing in my god-damned yard?"

I didn't know what to say to her. This didn't seem anything like the Bella I knew. But then again, perhaps hard emotions and terrible loss change a person?

"Well?" she demanded. She was tapping her foot with her arms crossed, waiting for me to give some answer to justify myself.

"I love you," I said.

"Oh, _do_ you?" She squinted her eyes. "If you love me, does that mean that you will do _anything_ for me?"

"Anything!" I promised. "I swear, Bella, that I will do _anything_ you ask of me!"

"Then here," she said, handing me a knife with a ten-inch blade.

"What's this for?" I asked, refusing to take the thing.

"It's a gift," she smiled, "From you to me."

"What do you mean?"

"You said you will do anything I ask. Is that right?"

I nodded my head and began to regret not setting some kind of limitations on the deal.

"Then _kill_ me."

"Kill?"

"Yes," she smiled wider. "_Kill_ me."

"My god! No! You can't be serious, Bella."

Her gaze remained steadfast and deliberate. "You bet your god-damned ass I am."

She pushed the knife into my hands.

"One way or another, Edward, you are going to kill me. We can stand out here in the rain until I die of exposure or you can get this over with now."

"Please," I begged.

"What? Would you prefer I jump off a cliff?" she laughed.

"What?"

"You heard me," she laughed again.

She snatched the knife from my hands and began thrusting it into her middle over and over again.

"Bella!" I screamed. "_Stop_ that! Stop it _now_!"

She kept laughing. I gripped her shoulders and she dropped the knife. Her nose began to bleed and blood made its way out of her mouth with each sound of insane laughter. It was less than a minute before her eyes rolled back into her head and she went limp.

"Bella?" I cried, shaking her. I screamed at the sky.

When I looked down, I saw nothing in my hands. There was nothing in my grip. She wasn't there anymore. Had she ever _really_ been there?

"What is this?" I asked. "What is this place?"

I spun around, desperate to find a way out. I was still in the yard. The rain was letting up and the sun began to shine, even though it had just gone down for the night. I ran toward the house. The back door was locked, so I pushed the whole thing in. It made a loud crashing noise as it fell to the ground.

I saw the back of Charlie's head. He was sitting calmly at the little round kitchen table, sipping his coffee and reading his paper.

"Charlie?" I asked, approaching him cautiously. I wasn't sure what to expect from one second to the next anymore. "Charlie?"

A man turned around, but it was _not_ Charlie.

"Who are you?" I asked.

He laughed and pulled a knife with a ten-inch blade from his pocket. "Sorry about that," he said with a devilish grin. "Sometimes I just can't help myself. All the new ones are so easy to screw with."

"Who are you?" I asked again; this time with more force.

"Why, Ignis Fatuus is the name. If you ask the others, they'll warn you that I'm a bit of a prankster. But I suppose you don't need their warning anymore, now do you? After all, you've already seen first-hand for yourself all about that haven't you? Have a seat."

He kicked the other chair out from the table and motioned for me to sit down. I did so, only because I was too confused to think of anything else to do at the moment.

"Where are we?" I asked.

"I am a lot of places. Do you mean to ask, where are _you_?"

"Okay then. Where am _I_?"

"You're in Seselis, otherwise known as the Land of Shadows. Which by the way, what brings someone like _you_ here?"

"Someone like _me_?"

"Yeah. I didn't think your kind was able to get here. How are you here, Edward, if not delivered by Death?"

"I came through a window," I said. "The glass, I mean. I didn't actually crawl through a window or anything, but I came in through…"

"The reflection," he said.

I nodded my head.

"With who?"

"Pardon?"

"_Who_ brought you here?"

"Bella."

"Right. Yeah. She's the girl whose form I took a likeness to, right?"

I nodded.

"You're not still upset about that, by the way, are you?"

I shrugged my shoulders. I wasn't really sure how I felt at that particular moment- other than confused.

"Well, you'll not get where you're going like that," he announced.

"Like what? And where am I going?"

"Two good questions," he snickered. "Sorry. I should've begun at the beginning. It would've been the kinder thing to do, I think." He stood from his seat and started roaming around the mock kitchen of Bella's home. "You're not dead, Edward. You're passed out. At least, I guess you can say it like that, anyways. So, the thing of the matter is that you will need to do better than passed out. You're going to have to find Death if you want to argue with it over who gets to keep Isabella Swan."

"How do I…"

"And," he kept going, despite the obvious fact that I was still confused and trying to ask a question, "You will need someone to take you there. I guess since I'm not doing anything at the moment and because I feel a _little_ badly for that fun charade earlier," he snickered to himself, "I can take you, if you want."

"Is there someone else who can take me?" I asked.

"Nope," he smiled.

I suppose I had no choice. "Alright," I said. "How do we…"

"As for getting there," he interrupted again, "I sort of know the way. It's been awhile since I've seen it – Death, I mean – and I'm pretty sure I can get us there. But things around here change all the time. It's not like we can follow a map or something, you know?"

"No," I said. I didn't know.

"Yeah, well, what I'm trying to tell you is that we are going to have to forge our own path."

"Can Bella take me?" I asked.

"No," he said. "She's on the other side of the rocks. She can't come this way. It's not possible for her."

"Why?" I asked.

"She's a dead person."

"Are you not dead?"

"I never was alive."

"And what about me?" I asked. "Why can I come over here?"

"I thought we already talked about this, Edward. You're going to have to pay much better attention than that if you want to make it through this strange swamp of a place! Geeze! I already told you- you're _not dead_. That's why we're going to visit Death."

"Can Death be visited?" I asked.

"I don't see why not," he said, shrugging his shoulders casually. "Death accepts visitors all the time. In fact, I think it might be _expecting _you. You don't want to be late, do you?"

"I didn't know we were on a time budget."

"Well, we are, and we aren't. It depends on how you look at things, I guess."

"Tell me Ignis, how do _you_ look at things?"

"There'll be plenty of time to talk about that on our journey. Let's get out of here. I hate Forks."

…

A/N: _Ignis Fatuus-_

1. Also called friar's lantern, will-o'-the-wisp. A flitting phosphorescent light seen at night, chiefly over marshy ground, and believed to be due to spontaneous combustion of gas from decomposed organic matter.

2. Something deluding or misleading.

3. In this case, a strange character who is neither good nor bad, and who is helpful but sometimes not whose disgusting sense of humor is strange and inappropriate, to name a few adjectives. I guess you'll see more of what I mean later on. Thanks for reading! ;)

Until next time,

Stephanie


	11. Steps Forward

**EPOV**

"So, Ignis…"

I started out trying to make some kind of small talk with the strange man, but he was making it difficult for me. Everything about this place and him was just so terribly awkward. He was walking very quickly and I struggled to keep up with him. I wasn't even sure if he was a man, in that I wasn't quite sure what his origins were. I guess that could be something to talk with him about?

"What are you?" I asked him.

"I'm Ignis," he said.

"I know your name," I replied, "But _what_ are you? Are you a dead man, I mean, the spirit of a dead man, or what exactly?"

"No," he laughed, "I never was a man. I am male, if that's what you mean."

"Okay," I said, wondering if I should push the matter any further.

"_You_ were a man," he said.

"Yes," I agreed. "Before I became a vampire, I was a mortal man."

He nodded his head at me and laughed again.

"What did you used to be?" I asked. I figured if I asked the same question in another way then he might begin to understand what it was I was trying to find out about him.

"I am what I've always been. I never was mortal. I've never been to the side where you come from. No one sent me there because I have no purpose on that side."

"So what are those who have always been on this side? I mean, do you have a mother and a father, or did you spring up from the ground, or what?"

"From the ground?" he chuckled, "Like a plant, you mean? Are you asking me if I'm a tree?"

"No," I said. "I just don't understand how you came to exist."

"Oh, is _that_ what you're asking me? Why then, let me just tell you about all that. I don't have parents in the way that you would have parents, and," he chuckled again, "I certainly didn't just spontaneously grow from the ground either."

I was embarrassed I had even suggested that now, but at least he was beginning to explain things.

"I was thought up by the forces of Nature. I was needed for a purpose and so I came to be."

"Which force of Nature?" I asked.

"Why, Enapay, of course."

"What is Enapay?"

"You mean _who_ is she?" he clarified.

"Yes. Sure. _Who_ is Enapay?"

"Not only is she my creator, but long before that she was the one who allowed the moonlight to fall to the earth. She creeps on the earth at night and makes sure that the sun light stays away from the darkness until it is time for the sun to come out for the entire day."

"How is that possible?" I asked. "Nobody does that; it's just what happens naturally as the earth spins. As positions of the earth move toward the light of the sun, that part is illuminated by the sun. And the sun is what illuminates the moon and the moon's light is just a reflection of the sun."

"Of course it is," he agreed. "Who the hell do you think is in charge of that? You said it happens _naturally_, but you are so ignorant that you never stopped to think how it is that the earth spins and how the sun shines, and so forth. Mortals and those who were once mortals are so into themselves and their own affairs that they forget that Nature is made of many."

"So," I said, giving up on my logical argument, "You're saying that the woman who is in charge of this is the one who created you?"

He nodded his head.

"And who created her?" I asked.

"You ask too many questions. Have you forgotten why you've come here or something? You want to take Bella out of the land of dead ones and return her to the land of the living ones, right?"

"Yes."

"Then shut up and follow me. I don't see the need for all this chit-chat about stuff you don't even think is real anyway. I know what you're kind is like. How you've got all your math and sciences figured out, but you have yet to explain things like _me_ and like _this place_. Believe me, I've seen dead scientists cross over and if they could crap their pants, they definitely _would_! But, as it is, crapping is something you do when you're alive, and not when you're dead. But I'm just saying… if they _could_."

"Alright," I said.

"Try to keep up," he snapped at me. "We're almost there and I'm sick of travelling. If I didn't have to usher you around I could have been there by now."

"How?" I asked. "Do you fly or something?"

"I travel by my mind," he said. "I think of where I want to go and I just go there. _You_ on the other hand cannot do those kinds of things so I actually have to drag you across all this distance."

"Sorry," I said.

"It's okay," he said after a moment or two. "It's my job to take you where you need to go. I've been expecting you to arrive. I've heard of others saying things about you coming for Bella."

"Who has said that?" I asked.

"What's with all the questions?" he snapped. "Not that I mind answering, but for crying out loud, your kind sure blabbers a bunch, huh?"

"I was just curious," I said.

"I know you are. It's because you can't read my mind, right?"

I paused for a second and realized that I couldn't read his mind.

"Ha!" he laughed. "I can't read yours either. That's new for me. I'm able to read everyone's mind. I can even read Enapay's mind. There are only certain forces whose minds are kept from me, but never something that has come from the other side before. How is it that I can't read yours?"

"I don't know," I said. "How is it that _I_ can't read _yours_?"

"You're from a human mother and father and humans can't read minds."

"I can," I argued. "I can read other's minds on the other side, where the living are. I can read all of their minds."

"_All_ of them?" he asked.

"Well, except for Bella's," I amended.

"Hmm…"

"What is it?" I asked, hoping he might have some sort of theory as to why things were the way they were.

"Nothing," he answered. "We're here."

"Where Death is?" I asked.

"No. We're at Enapay's home. She and Tuathal live here."

"Who's Tuathal?" I asked.

"Will you stop it with the questions already?" he demanded.

"Sorry. I'm just used to being able to hear the answers without anyone having to say them out loud. I forget that I'm even actually asking."

"It's okay," he said. "I suppose it's natural for something like you to be curious. You are, after all, from human kind." He pointed down to a calm lake. "Anyway, hop in."

"In here?" I asked. "In the water?"

"Yes," he snickered.

"They live in a lake?"

"They sure do. Just dive on in there, Edward."

I did as he said. I put my arms over my head and assumed a diving stance and hopped right in. I fell forward through a thin layer of water, but it was only about an inch in thickness. After I crossed through the water's boundary, there was nothing but dryness underneath. I plummeted to the ground and rolled forward. I hit my head and shoulder against a cold stone wall.

"What the hell?" I shrieked.

"Oh," he said as he jumped down and landed on his feet, "I probably should have mentioned that they live in a _dry_ lake."

"A _dry_ lake?"

"Yeah. It looks like a lake from the surface, but it's just a hole in the ground with a spell over the top of it. It keeps intruders out. After all, who around here do you know that want to go jumping in a lake for the mere fun of it?"

"No one," I said hotly, "But that's because _I don't know anyone_ around here!"

"Yeah," he smiled, "That's true."

"You told me to _dive _in!"

"Did I?"

"You _know_ you did, Ignis! Those were your own words: _Just dive on in there, Edward_."

"I remember saying _hop in_," he argued.

"You did, but then you told me to dive in."

"Hmm, I guess that depends on how you see things," he replied coolly.

"You could have hurt me!" I asked. "I don't know if I should trust you!"

"Why Edward, I'm hurt! Why wouldn't you want to trust me?"

"Because you pretended to be Bella and you stabbed yourself over and over in the gut and then pretended to be Charlie and you just played a prank on me and…"

"There, there," he said, "Calm down. Can't I have a little fun? After all, it's not like it would have killed you." He started to laugh.

"What in the hell is so funny?" I asked, running my fingers through my hair and concentrating really hard on not pulling it all out.

"I just think it's silly that you're afraid of being hurt or killed or whatever, and yet, you are knowingly following me to Death's door."

"Well, we're not exactly at Death's door, are we?" I asked.

"No, but that's only because you have to be made ready to see Death. That's where Enapay and Tuathal come into the picture. Everyone knows that they're the best at preparing you to meet it."

"How would I have known that?" I asked.

"It's just common knowledge, Edward."

"Well, it's _not_ common to _me_, Ignis."

"You're right. I keep forgetting that you're not from around here and that you haven't even dwelled in the land where the dead are. I'm just so used to only certain kinds of entities being in these parts that I forget you're not like the rest of us. I'm sorry. I think I've hurt your pride. But please stop being a little pussy all the time, with your question-asking-super-powers and all that, and just let me have a little fun. A little prank isn't going to hurt you, after all. You _are_ alright, aren't you?"

I brushed my arms and legs off and stood up.

"Yes," I sulked. "I'm fine."

"Good, then let's get moving. We are wasting time. I happened to be immune to time, but you're not. Not here. You don't want to linger about these parts too long or you'll forget why you've come and you won't want to leave."

He led me forward to a door. He gave it a few taps.

"Come in," came a voice. "Ignis!"

A lovely middle-aged woman ran forward and embraced the cranky prankster in a loving embrace.

"Oh, we've missed you here. How long have you been away?"

"I don't know," he shrugged. "Is Tuathal here?"

"He'll be back later. He's away on business." The lovely lady glanced at me and waited to be introduced. "Who do you have here, Ignis?"

"This is Edward. He's come to collect Bella. She is dead. He needs to see Death to bargain and get her back. He wants to take her back to where the mortals are alive, so I've brought him to see you and Tuathal. I thought you two might be able to help him."

"Hmm," she said, glancing me over again, "I know we _can_ help. How long has he been here? Is he fresh?"

"He's not exactly alive back in the land of the living," he answered, "But he's not exactly dead either. He's something in between the two states."

"Tell me, Edward," she asked, "Were you bitten by the ones with the venom that keep you from aging?"

I nodded my head. "I'm a vampire," I admitted calmly. It wasn't every day, or ever really, that I said those words out loud.

"I'm Enapay, by the way," she said with a warm smile. "I was once very good friends with Death. I'm afraid she's become rather a bitter character these days, but I think that might have something to do with the serious nature of her work." She chuckled a little and Ignis joined in. How could it be that a topic as grave and solemn as death could be found humorous? "That's not to say that she can't be persuaded to give you back a loved one. Tell me, Edward, what is it that you are willing to do to get your Bella back?"

"I will do anything," I answered immediately.

"Be careful what you say," Enapay said, "Because you'll be held to your words in this place. Tell me, please, if there is anything you are _not_ willing to do to get your sweetheart back. If there is anything you are not prepared to do, you must tell me now."

"There is nothing I can think of, Enapay, that I am not willing to do."

"He must not have a very vivid imagination," Ignis joked. "I'll bet I can come up with all kinds of things he wouldn't be willing to suffer to get her back. It just takes a little bit of creativity."

"And a terribly sick mind like yours," Enapay laughed. "I'm sure you can think of many terrible situations that most wouldn't be willing to go through; however, I really do feel that he is perfectly sincere in what he says. I wonder…"

"What?" Ignis asked.

"I wonder if we might put him through a test?"

Ignis chuckled evilly and smiled a twisted smile.

"What kind of test?" I asked.

"Something difficult and hurtful," Enapay answered calmly. "I'm sorry, Edward. I know this is highly unorthodox in your culture and in your land, but please, if you would be so kind as to spit into my hand?"

"What?" I asked. Was this another prank of theirs? Was I going to be scolded for spitting on a woman any second now? "Are you kidding me?"

"No," she said seriously. "I'm not. Now, please, spit into my hand."

She held her palm out and I did as she told me to do. I spat into her hand. She rubbed her two hands together and a book emerged.

"Bella's journal?" I asked. "How? How did you make it appear?"

"It is your greatest fear," she said. "It's what you will need to face before you can go on to face Death. If you go unprepared then you might as well not go at all."

"Shall I read it?" I asked.

"No," she chuckled, "You won't need to be _reading _it. That would be entirely too easy. You're going to need a far greater challenge to impress Death enough to give her a reason to let you have Bella back."

"What shall I do then?" I asked.

"Hop inside," she said.

"How? What do you mean _hop inside_?"

"I mean what I said. Come to the book and open it up. You will go inside when you step forward. You will come out again when you are ready."

"What is in that book?" I asked.

"Whatever Bella felt and saw and tasted and smelled; her whole mortal world nearest her end is in this book. You're going to have a hard time facing what is in here, my dear Edward. But you must do it. You don't have a choice. You're going to face this because it is what will hurt you and scare you the most."

"How long will I be gone?" I asked.

"As long as it takes," she said.

She placed the book down on the ground before me and took a few steps back. Ignis stepped behind her and stared at the book as if it were an object to be feared. I bent down in front of it and opened the pages. Within seconds I was surrounded by everything in Bella's bedroom back when she was still alive. There was no dust on anything as there had been the last time I was there. I stepped forward and my feet landed on the rug by her bed. I was standing over her as she slept.

"Bella?" I asked.

"Edward?" she answered, sitting up all of a sudden. "Edward? Are you there again?"

"Again?" I asked. "When is it?"

"You were in the yard a few days ago," she said. "I thought I had dreamed that. But you're here now, so maybe I wasn't dreaming…"

"You _are_ dreaming," I said. I didn't want her to get her hopes up. I already knew how her story would end and I didn't want her to believe that I was really here. The truth was that I wasn't even sure if I was actually here or not.

"Oh," she said disappointedly. "That's too bad. I think of nothing but you, so I shouldn't be surprised that I'm dreaming of you right now, huh?"

"I guess not. I'm so sorry I left, Bella."

"Will you come back?" she asked hopefully.

"No. I won't. I will _want _to, but I don't come back in time."

"In time?"

I sat down next to her and embraced her.

"You feel just like you did when you were really here," she said with a sigh. "I've missed your touch. Sometimes I try to dream about the way this feels, and I can't recreate it. But I can feel it all again as if it were real. Oh Edward!" she cried. "I so much wish this _could be_ real again. I've missed you more than you can possibly imagine."

"Oh, I don't know about that," I said. "I've missed you so much too."

"I wish that were the truth, and then you might come back for me. I don't like it here without you. I feel trapped and sad and lonely. There is no one for me here."

"There's Charlie," I argued, "And all of your friends."

"None of them are _you_," she sobbed. "No one will ever be like you. Sometimes I think if I can't have you then I don't want to stay here any longer."

"Please don't talk like that," I begged. I hugged her more tightly and silently begged her to not jump off that cliff to a watery grave.

"How else shall I talk? After all, it's the truth, Edward. I wish I could dream of you more. I wish I could stay here, in this dreamland with you forever. I sometimes wonder if that's possible."

"If what's possible?"

"If I die, can I be with you somehow?"

"You wouldn't be with me," I answered. "I can't die, remember?"

"Well, I'm not here with you in life either, so what's the point of sticking around?"

"Please, Bella, please," I begged again, "Don't say things like that. I can't bear to hear you talk this way."

"I've only ever been honest with you Edward. That's not going to change now. This is how I feel and this is what I'm thinking. I'm desperate to be away from here. I'm so sad. I'm so afraid."

"Afraid of what?"

"That you really won't come back for me. Sometimes I convince myself that you _do_ love me."

"I do," I insisted. "I _do_ love you. That's why I left you. Can't you try to see things from my perspective? Can't you see that what I did was for your own good?"

"Who are you to decide what is for my own good? My own good is to be with you and for you to be with me. That's what I want. It's what I've always wanted since you've come into my life! I tried telling you that over and over, but you'd never listen to me. I promised you that I was willing to give up everything I have so that we could be together forever. If I can't find you here, then maybe you're somewhere else."

"You won't find me in death," I reasoned. "That's not the way out, Bella. It's _not_ the answer! It's never the answer! I'm not on that side of the line." Well, I wasn't at the time we would be having this conversation. "You have so much to live for," I reasoned. "So very much promise in life. You're bright and you can be happy again someday."

"No," she sighed. "That's not true. I will never be happy without you Edward. That's the way it is."

She laid back down in her bed and drifted off to her real dreams. I sat there for hours, waiting for what would come next. Finally, the scene around me changed and I was walking behind her in an empty hallway at the high school.

She turned around suddenly.

"Who is there?" she asked. She gasped when she saw me. "Edward? Oh my god, am I dreaming again?"

"You are," I lied.

"You seem so… _real_," she said, running her hands over my chest and down my stomach. "I can _feel_ you."

My heart broke as I watched her wish I was really there, in her own time and place. I longed to be. I might have saved her. I might have kept her from making that jump.

"Be happy," I begged her.

"No," she said. "It doesn't work like that. I can't just _be happy_. I have no reason to be happy."

"You have so many reasons, Bella, but you shut them out."

"I don't want anything else," she argued. "You already know that. I wish you were real. I wish you would come back to Forks, even just to take me away with you. I would go with you, wherever you are."

I looked out of the windows of the doors of the school and noticed that there was snow on the ground. It was getting closer and closer to that time when she would no longer be able to write in her journal anymore.

"Bella," I sighed. I took her in my arms and held her. I felt her heartbeat thrum through my entire body as I concentrated on absorbing every second of what was left of her life. I wanted to be here with her, where she was and when she was.

"Edward."

"I love you so much. So, _so_ much. I wish you knew that."

"I wish it were so," she mumbled.

"Why can't you just believe it is?"

"Because you told me you don't want me anymore. And because you're not here with me, which proves how little you want me." Her tone was turning angrier now. "I don't know what to do with myself sometimes, Edward! I don't know how to move on! I can't bury the memory of you. Even if you don't love me, I still love you. I don't want to be here anymore!"

"Please, don't say that!" I yelled back. "Stop talking like this!"

"What? Like a crazy person? Have you ever stopped to consider that I might actually _be_ crazy at this point? Huh? Have you? Because here I am, hallucinating that you're here with me in this very hallway. But you're not. You're never really here. I'm a lunatic and that's just the way it is now."

"You're not crazy," I argued. "You've never been crazy."

"It doesn't feel that way."

"Well, you're not," I insisted. "I wish I could tell you everything that is going on, but I can't. I want to so much, but I can't because it just won't do any good for either of us. I just want you to be safe and I want you to be happy."

"Well, I just want you here with me. I guess we both don't get what we want this time, huh?"

She faded from view and I reappeared back in the room with Enapay and Ignis. I fell to my knees and wanted to just curl up in a ball and stay that way. Bella was hurt. Bella was angry. Bella believed she was crazy. She was depressed and I was the sole cause of those feelings and all of that confusion. I was the one who put her through that and it ate me alive to think about it.

"You have to go back in there," Enapay said.

"I can't. It hurts too much to see her that way."

"It only gets worse," she warned. "Go back in."

"No."

"You said you'd do anything."

"I would. I will do anything. Give me something to _do_, Enapay! What can be done with the past? It's already happened. Why do I need to see it? Give me something I can _do_! Give me something I can _change_! I can't change her decision. She is already dead!"

"Get back in there," she warned again. "You will run out of time if you don't hurry. You haven't got forever."

I stood back up and faced the book again. I didn't want to go in. I knew it only got worse from here on out.

"Alright," I said, leaning down again and opening the pages back up.

"After this is over, you will be taken to Death. Who knows but that you might be worthy at that time to get her back? You said you can't change what happened, but what if you could?"

"Then I _would_!"

"You must see what you're afraid of Edward. You must see all the things that would hurt you. You have to witness her pain so that you will never make the mistakes you made before again."

"Okay," I said, this time with some determination. "I'm ready."

"Then step forward."

…

A/N: This chapter must be cut here for length, but the next part of it will be out very soon! I promise! I hope you are all enjoying the story so far. Thanks so much for reading and for the kind reviews you all leave! Until next time, which will be _very_ soon…

Stephanie

P.S. Thank you ILOVEPANCAKES. This chapter is for you! ;) And thank you to all those who review and send kind messages. You all really make my day!


	12. Cephas

**EPOV**

_"Okay," I said, this time with some determination. "I'm ready."_

_"Then step forward."_

I didn't want to step forward, but I knew it was the only thing that I could do at this point. I couldn't stay where I was because where I was is a place that didn't have Bella in it. I was unhappy in my current state and the only way I could find true happiness again was to be with her.

But I wasn't really with her in her journal. These were not new memories to be made for her; these were terrible, haunting fragments of past events. The atmosphere therein would encircle me with more than just mere affliction. Every part of me ached when I stepped forward again and faced her back.

She was at her desk writing in the very thing that tortured me now.

"Bella?" I whispered.

She didn't hear me.

"Alone," she mumbled. "Always alone."

"Bella?" I asked again, this time just a little above a whisper.

She laid her head down into her arms at her desk and began to weep bitter tears. I didn't have a way to avoid what was happening now. I was in this place and would have no choice but to see what she had done to herself.

"Bella!" I bawled as I saw the red trickling out of her veins. "No!"

I rushed to her side and tried to push down on the wounds, to keep her blood in her body. It was no use; the cuts were too long. The red escaped and went everywhere. They weren't just at her wrists but up her arms, even into the inside bend at her elbow.

"This isn't how it happened," I begged the journal. "This isn't how she died! Why are you showing me _this_? It's not what happened!"

In a flash, I was standing behind her again. She still had her back to me and she was not bleeding to death, but still writing. I sighed with relief and stepped forward to put my hand on her shoulder.

"Bella," I said.

I looked down to see a noose hanging around her neck. She was sitting upright, but she was entirely lifeless. Her face was bloated from the constriction. Her eyes were wide open and bloodshot. The hemorrhages in her eyes travelled down the side of her face and neck.

"Bella!" I shrieked.

Again, I was standing behind her and she was writing at her desk.

"Not another," I begged. "Not another!"

She stood from her desk and turned around to face me.

"Bella?" I asked. "What are you doing?"

"I'm writing," she said with a shrug.

"Oh? What are you writing?"

I walked over to her desk and looked at the open journal. She was making a list: …_bullet to brain; knife to heart; poison; slit wrists; hang._

"Please, Bella, don't do _any_ of these things! _Please_!"

"It's going to have to be one of them, or something else I haven't thought of yet."

"No, Bella. That's not true. It doesn't have to be this way at all."

"Yes it does."

She sat back down at her desk and began to write again. This time we were both standing on the highway lines in the middle of a busy road. She walked toward two oncoming headlights. I tried to grab her arm and pull her back, but she flinched away. The horn of the semi wailed as the headlights veered nearly off the road. She managed to jump in front of it and that was another end of the girl I loved.

I tried to run into the woods to escape the scene, but I was sucked back into her little room where she was once again writing at her desk.

"Fine!" I shouted. "You're going to kill yourself! I can't change that. It's already happened. It's already real!"

"That's all you had to accept," said Enapay.

She stood behind me in Bella's room.

"How long have you been here?" I asked her.

"I've been watching you all this time. I'm sorry Edward, that you needed to see all of this, but you needed to learn a lesson."

"What? That I'm a terrible person and that I'm not really worthy of her?"

"No. That you can't change what she's decided to do to herself."

"Am I supposed to just give up then? Am I supposed to just say, _Fine Death, take her and keep her_?"

"No," she said calmly. It was a sharp contrast to my tone, which was hysterical now. "But you can't go into Death's territory and argue that Bella's not dead. In your mind, because there is a way to bring her back, you try to believe that she hasn't really killed herself. She _is_ dead, Edward. She is _dead_. That makes her Death's property. Let me just warn you that Death does _not_ look kindly upon those in denial, as you have been. Death doesn't give back what is hers. In fact, she will argue with you that she never tried to take Bella, but Bella willingly gave herself to Death. Do you see? She will hold her suicide against you and you have to be prepared to face the fact that Bella Swan killed herself."

"It was because of _me_ that she did that," I muttered.

"You did not kill her," Enapay argued. "She killed herself. That's how Death will see it and she'll ask you to build a case around that and why Bella should be justified to return to the way she was."

"Logic?" I asked. "That I can do."

"It's not as simple as logic," she warned. "There is more to it than that."

"What else could there be?" I asked. "You said she will want me to build a case. I will have no problem with _that_."

"We'll see," she sighed. "I can't tell you everything Edward. Some things you're just going to have to figure out as you go. But I _can_ tell you this: drop the attitude. Don't be so damn cocky. You won't be able to get out of here with her by your side if you go in there without humility."

Everything that surrounded us while the journal was open cleared away as the pages were closed. Enapay picked it up and handed it to me.

"You'll need to take it with you," she said.

"Why?"

"You'll know why when it's time to open it again."

"That is something I don't ever want to do again."

"You won't have a choice, Edward."

I took the frail thing and placed it in my pocket. I hated carrying it with me. I hate that she ever wrote in this damn thing in the first place. It could have been filled with happy memories instead, if only I had stayed with her. That was another lesson I learned today: I can't force her into feeling something she just won't feel. I can't make her be fine with me leaving her, even if I did believe it was for her own good. I realized that as unhappy as I was without her is as unhappy as she was without me. Looking back now, after all I'd witnessed from this monster I carried in my pocket, it was obvious that I shouldn't have stayed away from her. When I could finally take her out of this place and back to where she belonged, I would never allow her to come here again. Death would no longer be an option for her. I would keep her with me and change her to become like me once and for all. It was something I should have done in the first place.

It pained me to realize that it took something like this to show me something as simple as that. Bella should not have been subject to Death any more than I was.

"Enapay?" I asked.

"Yes?"

"Death can't trap me here, right? I'm free to go wherever I want to, aren't I? After all, my body is in such a state that it won't die."

"That is something to be considered, yes," she said cautiously. "You have been called to die by Bella's side, though. That is something that has already been fulfilled. When you dropped your body and entered your reflection, you left yourself for dead."

"I've also been called to drink a poison," I said, remembering Nya's words.

"Yes," she said. "But a poison can mean many things."

"Living through Bella's journal was a kind of poison," I recommended.

"That was a terrible thing for you to have to endure," she agreed with that much, "But it was not your poison. I think you'll know what it is when the time comes."

"So, how do I get to Death?" I asked.

"Ignis will take you the rest of the way."

"Is there no one else who can guide me?" I asked.

"He is the one appointed to guide you," Enapay advised. "You must follow him, Edward. He is the one who can take you to Death. No one else will be able to."

"Do we _have _to leave before he even got to meet Tuathal?" Ignis whined.

"He will meet him on the way," she said brightly. "Don't worry about any of that for now."

"You promise?" Ignis asked her.

"I can promise you that, yes."

"Then let's go!" Ignis said cheerily. "Just hop up through that door there."

"Door?" I asked, seeing no door.

"Yes, right up there; right through the water."

I looked around wearily, wondering what he might pull this time. I still didn't feel I could trust him.

I climbed through the top of the water and wrung my clothes and hair out as they were now soaking wet. Ignis pushed the water aside and rose up out of the dry lake. He didn't have a drip on him.

"How did you do that?" I asked.

"You went _through_ the door, but not _through_ it," he laughed. "First lesson about doors is that you have to _open _them! I thought it would have been that way in your world too, but I guess I was wrong."

He continued to have a laugh at my expense as I muttered some curse words under my breath.

"In my world, if you don't open the door then you can't pass through at all," I said.

"In _my_ world, if you don't open it, you get wet or affected according to whatever the door is made of," he chuckled.

"I never even saw a door," I argued.

"There are doors everywhere," he said. "In the rocks; in the trees; in the ground; _everywhere_!"

"I've yet to see a door."

"You'll learn to recognize them with experience," he said. "Here, for example, is a door we must _open_ and then go through. Come see."

He pointed to a flat stone wall that was chiseled out of the side of a solid mountain.

"I don't see anything except a rock," I stated flatly.

"Look again."

I looked again and there was a band of light that wasn't there just a moment ago.

"You see? Those are the boundaries of the door. Push it open."

I did as he said and a door swung back into a different scene entirely. Inside of the rock it was raining and storming. I went through and stepped into the ground, which was nearly a foot of mud every which way.

"Too bad the weather isn't on our side," he muttered. "I guess she doesn't want to see anyone today."

"Who?" I asked.

"Who do you think? Death, of course. She must be in a bad mood. Oh well. Not _my_ problem. All's I know is it's my job to take you to her door. It can be found in the sky just a few miles that way."

"A door in the sky?" I wondered out loud.

"Yup. It's the only one of its kind. No one else gets a door in the sky."

"How will I know when I see it?" I asked.

"Stick with me and I'll point it out to you," he said.

We began our long trek in the mud and the rain. There were a few others passing by us in the opposite direction. They all seemed to know where they were going; all except _one_ of them. He was a middle-aged man lurking around behind the brush along the path of mud.

"Who's that?" I asked Ignis.

"His name is Cephas. He is lost, wandering around, trying to figure out where his true love has gone off to."

"Is he Nya's husband?" I asked.

Ignis nodded his head and I motioned for us to go over to the man.

"Hello there," I said. "My name is Edward."

I extended my hand for him to shake it, but he looked at me with suspicion.

"I know your wife," I said.

"My wife?" he asked angrily. "What can you possibly know about my wife?"

"I know her name is Nya and I know she wants to be with you. I can take you to her. Why don't you come with us?"

"I can find her _myself_," he spat at me.

"No, you can't," I argued. "She's not in here anymore. She's on the other side."

"That's not true!" he yelled. "It's not true! She's in here somewhere."

"No," I countered, "She's _not_. She's the one who led me to find this place. You can search high and low but you'll never find her here. If you want to get back to her then come with me."

His eyes were full of anger and mistrust.

"I will never give into your trickery!" he announced. "I will never give in. I _will_ find her. Lies! Always falseness in here!"

"Keep walking, Edward," Ignis advised. "There is nothing that can be done for him in here."

"But if I can take him back to Nya…"

"You can't," he said. "He doesn't _want_ to go. He doesn't trust you."

"Why not?" I asked.

"He's been fooled into following others down paths that have led to nothing but emptiness."

"How do I know that _you_ won't do the same thing to _me_?" I asked suddenly.

"You don't know that I won't," he said calmly, "But you have the choice to trust me or not trust me. So far I've led you where you've needed to be. Why can't you trust that I will lead you where you need to go?"

"You convinced me to jump into a pool of nothing and you've already pretended to be someone you're not."

"Those things were all done in good, harmless fun. I prepared you, when I was in the form of Bella, to see what Bella would actually do! Remember? Remember in her journal? I made sure to spare you from seeing the bullet to the brain. Remember that one? I believe it was at the top of her little death list. Let's not forget that you're being prepared for something _big_ here. Now come on! Stop wasting time. Leave Cephas."

"Come with us," I begged the man again. "I promise you that I will take you to Nya."

His eyes began to well up with tears before he blinked them away and pushed me to the ground. My backside was now completely covered in mud.

"No," he said. "Always _lies_!"

Ignis pulled me up by my arm, and through the mud and the rain we walked onward. My mind kept going back to Cephas. Was there more I could have done to convince him to come with us? I felt a pang of guilt as I thought of leaving him there to wander all alone.

"Watch yourself in this place," Ignis said.

"Why's that?" I asked.

"This area is a crossroads for many souls. Whether human or something else, everyone has their own interests to serve here. We are very close to Death's Door. Just stick with me and I'll be sure you get there."

We kept walking the trail of mud for hours.

"Nearly there," he'd say every once in awhile.

Walking, walking, walking…

"Nearly there."

"Are you sure we're even going the right way?" I asked.

"I know my way around these parts better than nearly anyone!"

He said it would be a few miles, but I was sure that we'd traveled quite a ways already. Were we even going in the right direction?

"How often do you come this way?" I asked.

"Often enough," he said. "Why? Are you not sure that I know my way?"

I shrugged. "I don't know," I said. "I don't know what to think anymore."

"Well, change that!" he said. "You can't let doubt overcome you in this place. You might forget who you are or why you've come. You might develop silly ideas, like that everyone is out to get you; kind of like your pal Cephas back there. Keep your mind clear and think of what you're here to do."

"I'm not exactly sure what I'm here to do. I mean, I can think of a dozen reasons why Death should give me Bella and let me remove her from this place, but I'm worried that none of them will be good enough for her."

"My advice to you is this: don't be all uppity. Speak sincerely. Be open and honest and tell her why you want the things you do. Death is not reasonable the way the rest of us are. Your logic will have a very limited effect on her. Death is not easily swayed by Logos. She's more… what shall I say? She's more _emotional_. You'll have to connect with her on that sort of level. She'll want to _feel_ something from you."

"What will she want to feel from me, exactly?"

"Just feel what you feel and let her feel it too. Don't try to feel something you don't. Death will know better than that."

"Is she scary?" I asked.

"Depends on who you ask, I should think. If you're asking if she's gruesome, the answer is definitely no. She's not a creepy monster that lurks around in the dark wearing a black robe and holding a scythe. But if you're alive and if you don't want to die, then I'm sure anything that is trying to rip you away from loved ones and happy times can be fearsome. Why do you ask, Edward? Are you afraid?"

"I'm only afraid that I might not be able to get Bella back. I'm afraid I've come here and there is nothing I can do in the end."

"Well, if you came all this way, it wasn't for nothing. The worst case scenario is that you've made this journey to return empty-handed, but you'll know you've done everything there was that could be done. Not only would you not have Bella in your hand, but you would not have guilt in your hand either. If you leave empty-handed, then truly _empty-handed_ you will be."

"I don't want to go on without Bella. I don't want to return without her."

"You would rather stay here?"

"Yes."

"But you couldn't be on _her_ side. You would have to be on _this_ side. You're not human anymore, remember? And she is."

"I don't want to go back without her," I said again.

"We're almost there," he said. "It's just past that grove of cherry trees."

"Why is it that Cephas refused to join us?" I asked. "Why wouldn't he trust us? I mean, the fact is that this time, someone really could reunite him and Nya. Why wouldn't he have faith in that?"

"I think you're about to find out."

...

A/N: Enapay is Native American and it means "Brave." I decided to name her this because she is helping Edward become brave so that he can face Death.

Cephas is of Hebrew origin and it means "Rock." He is Nya's husband and although he makes just a small appearance here and there, he is a very important character.


	13. Perjura

**EPOV**

Ignis and I were crossing through the mud past a cherry orchard when a woman approached us. I shook my head, trying to figure out exactly where she had just come from. It _seemed_ like she merely stepped out of a solid tree trunk, or maybe she appeared out of thin air?

"Hello there, strangers," she hissed seductively with a smile. "We hardly ever get any visitors around here."

"_We_?" Ignis questioned.

She motioned toward the ground, and Ignis and I looked down at the same time. There were heaps of mud-splattered bodies sprawled across the ground.

"Quiet," she shushed us. "I don't want you waking up my precious lovelies."

"What's wrong with them?" I asked, noticing they were all naked and that their lips were stained with what must have been the pulp from the cherries.

"It is because of things like _her_ that fellows like Cephas don't trust anyone anymore," Ignis answered sternly.

"Where are you two off to exactly?" she asked casually.

"Nowhere that concerns _you_, witch!" Ignis snarled.

She hissed back violently. "You're wrong about that. This is _my_ land. Only one of you may cross at a time. The other must remain with me."

"I'm not bound to your rules," Ignis snapped.

"But _he_ is," she snickered. "And if you're his guide that means that you very well _are_ bound to the rules." She looked smug as she spoke.

"What is it she wants?" I asked Ignis.

"I just want to help you," she said seriously. "I really do. I'm not the one who's out to fool you, Edward."

"How did you…"

"Know your name?" She smiled widely and moved closer to me.

"Don't let her touch you," Ignis warned.

Before I could stop her, she curled her hand around my neck and dragged the tip of her dainty nose down my cheek.

"Edward," she whispered in a long, drawn out way, "You want to stay here. With _me_. Tell him you want to stay. He can go on without you and prepare the way for you. You can meet up with him later."

"I can meet up with him later," I repeated her ideas as if they were my own.

"No, you _won't _meet up with me later if you don't come with me right _now_," Ignis demanded.

"That's not true," she whispered sweetly in my ear.

"That's not true," I parroted the woman.

"Come on, Edward!" Ignis shouted. "Snap out of this! You'll never go anywhere with her. That's the moral of this story here. You don't have to suffer through it to learn the lesson. Just keep your head clear. She's nothing to you, Edward. Come on, man!"

He slapped me across the face, which got my attention fast.

"Are we there?" I asked, opening my eyes which I hadn't realized had been closed.

"Come on," he said, "We have to be going now."

"Yes," I agreed, shrugging the woman off of me.

"You haven't tried the fruits of the orchard yet," she pouted.

"And he never will," Ignis said flatly. "Come on, Edward. This way."

The road ahead to which he was pointing showed gray clouds collecting closer and closer together. Lightning and thunder slapped through the sky.

On the other hand, I looked up at the sky over the cherry orchard. The sun began to peek through the clouds and the cherries on the trees were redder than they had been just moments before. The ground was solidifying so that it was no longer a trench of muck, but rather a grassy field. Flowers bloomed over the bodies, covering them up with a flowery disguise.

"What are you waiting for?" Ignis asked me. "Why are you standing around?"

"Don't you see the sunlight coming in?" I asked.

"No," he said. "There is no sunshine, Edward. It's only what she _wants _you to see. It's not really there."

"But I can see it above me," I insisted.

"It's not really there, Edward. Please, let's just go. We don't have time to waste here."

"You're not wasting time here," the woman coaxed me.

"I'm not wasting time here," I assured him.

"You _want _to stay and eat of the fruit," she whispered softly.

"I want to stay and eat of the fruit."

"No, you _don't_!" Ignis said, smacking me in the face again.

The sunlight disappeared for half a second before it reappeared more fully.

"Look down, Edward! What do you see?" he demanded.

"I see flowers and ivy," I said.

"No! Step down! What do you feel?" Ignis was beginning to lose his temper with me.

I stepped down and felt the mud we had been walking through all along. I felt limp bodies beneath my feet; bodies that I was stepping over to get to the delicious red fruit.

"Bella Swan," Ignis said.

I stopped suddenly and stood still. I knew I was not really standing in sunshine and I knew I shouldn't eat the cherries from the tree. But I _wanted _to.

"She is the reason you're here," Ignis insisted. "She is why you're traveling this strange road. Do you want her back or not?"

"I _do_," I answered.

"Then stop looking at those cherries. They will destroy you. You will want to fall asleep here. You won't ever want to wake up. You won't be able to face Death if you are not awake, Edward. You won't be able to tell her that you want Bella back. You won't find her if you eat those cherries."

"Eat the cherries," the woman whispered.

I took another step forward, pushing a sleeping man's face into the mud as I did so. I saw flowers beneath me, but I knew better than that.

"I'm going to eat the cherries," I stuttered. "Just one."

"Just one is all it will take to ruin you, friend," Ignis warned. "Just one."

I stopped reaching for the cherry that my finger tip was grazing.

"Look, Edward: you're the one who is going to have to make the choice about what you will do. I know that fruit looks delicious, but it won't help you accomplish what you've come here to do. I understand that they are tempting to you and it is difficult to think of anything else but them in this moment. But might I persuade you to think of the girl you love? Imagine her face, Edward. _See_ her in your mind. Remember her. She loves you, and you love her. You want to be with her and she wants to be with you. You don't want to fall asleep here, do you?"

"No."

"Then _don't_. Just _don't_. Trust me, please, when I tell you to come with me now and don't look back to this place."

"But Edward," the woman giggled in a seemingly-innocent way, "I would never hurt you. I want what's best for you. Surely you have been travelling for a great while now? You _must_ be in need of rest. Rest is all I offer you."

"I don't want to rest," I told her. "I want to keep going. I want to get to Death so I can convince her to let me have Bella back."

"You will never get her back," the woman cackled. "Don't you see?"

"No, I don't see your way woman. I believe I can get her back."

"What if she's not really dead?" she asked.

"She _is_ dead, though," I argued.

"How can you be sure?"

"Her body was buried in the ground."

"So?"

"And she is not in it."

"So?"

"And she is in Seselis."

"So? That doesn't mean she is truly dead, Edward. _I_ just happen to know a way that can bring her to you without you having to argue with Death or with anyone else. I know of a thing that can heal the effects of all pain and affliction. It can compensate for these terrible consequences you believe you must face."

"What is this thing you speak of?" I asked.

"Don't listen to her, Edward! She will destroy you if she can!"

I tuned Ignis out. I was willing to at least hear all of my options, even if one of them was from a strange lady standing over a pile of sleeping, cherry-stained bodies.

"These fruits can offer you the comfort you seek, Edward," she whispered gently into my ear. "In eating them, they heal your suffering. You can find relief from sin and guilt. All of the harmful effects of your ignorance and neglect – a pain caused by your own willful actions – can be done away with. It's not _your_ fault that she is the way she is now, Edward. It's not your fault."

"It isn't?" I asked with hope.

"No," she hissed. "It's only a result of living in a natural world. But _I_ can offer you reprieve from that world. Come and live among mine, and live in a world without consequence. Why do you think there are so many in these orchards?"

"I don't know," I said.

"It is because they don't want to face Death. Death holds you accountable for everything you've done and left undone. You don't want to be accountable for all of your… _misdoings_, do you?"

"No," I said, shaking my head. "I don't want to feel this way anymore. I'm afraid," I admitted.

"You don't have to be, Edward. Not here. Not here with me."

"I'm confused," I said.

"That's _exactly_ how she wants you to feel, Edward!" Ignis shouted. "She is lying to you! She is a serpent, Edward! Wake up and see her for what she really and truly is!"

"Bella doesn't want you to suffer, Edward," the woman sighed confidently. "And you don't want to suffer. So why not eat of the fruit?"

I held my hand out and waited for her to give me a cherry.

"Ah-ah-ahh," she said, wagging her finger. "You must pluck it yourself."

I reached up toward the fruit so that I might pull it away from the branch.

"Edward! If you do this, you will _not_ be happy! She can't promise you happiness." Ignis' words were confusing me now. I was confident that this woman was making complete sense, but now I was unsure again. "You will be miserable and unable to escape, if you choose to do this to yourself. Think of all you will lose! Bella and your own sanity, both, gone forever!"

I dropped my hand again.

"Onward," Ignis said sternly. "Onward to Death."

"She won't give you what you want, Edward. I can at least offer you solace in that you will be numb."

"I don't want to be numb," I decided out loud. "I want to be happy."

"And you think Death can make you happy?" she spat. "Since when has Death ever made _anyone_ happy? She is greedy and selfish and…"

"I have to try," I said. "I owe it to Bella to do anything in my power to bring her home."

"That's a good boy!" Ignis encouraged. "Let's go, Edward. We don't need to stay here a second longer. Let's be on our way."

"You'll be sorry," the woman screeched.

We walked quite a distance before I looked back at the cherry orchard. There was just as much mud in that place as there was everywhere else. No sunlight shone into the trees as it had seemed to earlier. There was nothing but falsehood there.

"Keep your eyes straight ahead," Ignis said. "There's no use in looking back that way."

"Who was that woman?" I asked.

"Her name is Perjura," he said. "She is a witch who guides men and women down the wrong path and then abandons them. Her taunts are addictive; self-degenerating; conductive to other strains of corruption; deadening to spirituality, conscience, and reason; blinding to reality; contagious; destructive to mind, body, and spirit. She is corrosive in every way. Unrestrained, she becomes all-consuming."

"Why is she allowed to go on the way she does?" I asked.

"She is a force of Nature as well," he said, raising his eyebrows. "She is temptation and luxury and very beautiful. Truly, she is a desired force. She is able to tempt the mightiest of kings and the lowliest of slaves. No one escapes her temptation. She appears in many forms to men and women, according to what appeals most to them in the world. Tell me, Edward, if you wouldn't mind, what she appeared as to you."

"Well," I said, thinking it over, "She appeared to be something comforting, I guess. I thought for a moment that she really might be able to numb me and keep me from feeling the guilt that I am constantly racked with since hearing of Bella's death. She also took advantage of my desire to believe that Bella is not really dead."

"I see," Ignis said.

"You see what?"

"I see that your fears now are the same ones as before." He laughed. "It's amazing to me that you're not afraid of Death, but afraid of the separation that comes because of Death. That might be what saves you in the end. That's what might allow you to have Bella back someday."

"I wish I understood what you mean," I said.

"You will find out soon enough what I mean. For now, we are here. Look up."

I gazed up at the sky. There was a band of light in the air as there had been in the solid rock we entered.

"How do I get in?" I asked.

"Don't be silly, Edward. Why, through the door of course!"

…

A/N: When Ignis describes Perjura to Edward he says that she is _additive; self-degenerating; conductive to other strains of corruption; deadening to spirituality, conscience, and reason; blinding to reality; contagious; destructive to mind, body and spirit. _ He also calls her _corrosive_ and says that if she is left unrestrained that she _becomes all-consuming_. These words are the ones that Elder Richard G. Scott uses to describe sin in an article called "To Acquire Spiritual Guidance." I wanted to give him credit for his words, but they apply so well here to this character that I couldn't help but use them in this story. Yet, as always, it is best to give credit where credit is due.

Perjura comes from the word perjury, which is the willful giving of false testimony under oath or to give false, misleading or incomplete statements regarding the truth while being under oath. Fitting, don't you think so?

Thank you so much for reading, and until next time,

Stephanie


	14. Hestia

**EPOV**

Ignis pushed me up through the door into the sky and in turn I pulled him in. We stood there for a moment, taking in the scene around us.

The light from the sun over us was very bright and there wasn't a single cloud in the sky. We pulled off our shoes, since they were covered in mud and too heavy to trudge around in any longer. The warmth was a welcomed contrast to the terrible rain that had been beating down on our faces previously.

"Where are we, exactly?" I asked Ignis.

"This is where I've agreed to bring you and this, my friend, is as far as I will be able to go. I never was alive and am not able to see Death face to face as you are."

"You have to leave?" I questioned frantically.

It was true that I didn't necessary like having him around at first, but despite his pranks and "good fun," he had saved me back there. I decided he was worth trusting after all and I felt abandoned and insecure without someone to help guide me the rest of the way. I needed him to help see me through this.

"I'm sorry," he apologized for things out of his own control, "But this is the way it _must_ be. I'll see you when you're all done, okay?"

I nodded my head and swallowed my fear along with, hopefully, my pride. I tried to remember that I needed to be humble now. That wasn't in my usual nature, I admit, and I was afraid of the grave I might dig for myself here, _literally_!

"Just go forward, Edward. You might be surprised to know that you already know exactly how to find _her_."

"Uh… okay," I said with a drooping posture. I was not delighted to be in the situation I was in, but I knew that this is what I'd earned for myself from making the choices I had made. Hopefully remembering that would be able to keep me humble and lowly. "I will go forward."

"Go on," Ignis encouraged. "Just go. Don't stand around looking like you're in trouble. It's an honor to be here, meeting with her personally. Go on."

I moved forward, feeling the crisp grass between my toes as I walked through it. When Ignis was no longer in sight I saw before me a playground. It looked happy enough, but I wondered why it was here.

"Hello?" I called into the open.

"Hello," said a little girl ahead of me. She was sitting on the merry-go-round.

"Hi there," I said, walking up to her. "What is your name?"

"Hestia," she said with a bright smile.

"Hello there Hestia. My name is Edward; Edward Cullen. Is there anyone else here? Other than the two of us, I mean."

"No," she said, shaking her head.

"Well then… huh," I said, sitting down next to her.

"Were you expecting someone else?" she asked.

"I wonder if we went through the right door," I muttered.

"There's only _one_ door in the sky," she said. "If you came through that one, then you came through the right one Edward; Edward Cullen."

"It's just that I'm looking for… I know this may sound silly and all, but I'm looking for…"

"That last and most dreaded enemy?" she asked.

"I… uh…"

"You're looking for Death, right?"

"Yes," I said, looking into her deep blue eyes. Her light blond hair was blowing in the calm breeze and she looked like she wouldn't be capable of harming a fly. "Do you know where she is?"

"I think you already know," she said, peering into my eyes as deeply as I was peering into hers.

I realized it then.

"Hello Death," I said.

"Hello Edward."

Chills ran up my spine; a thing I didn't even know was possible anymore. I had never expected Death to be a beautiful child.

Her plump lips curled into a dazzling white smile. I was terrified that her expression was so sincere. I felt naked; like she could see right into me and through me. I knew she had known me since I was born and waited for me until now. Her cheeks flushed the color of pink roses and she stood up suddenly.

"Look what I have," she said, walking over to the bottom of a slide and holding up a jar. "It's full of lightning bugs!" she squealed with excitement.

Was she mature enough to be such a palpable force? Was she really the thing most dreaded in all the world?

"They look neat," I said with a smile.

"I can see them light up when the sun goes down. I can see all of the stars from here. There is no light in all my land to compete with the stars. No pollution at all, actually. I love to watch them change through the heavens, the way that they do. These little guys keep me company while I watch."

I noticed that the lid didn't have any holes poked through the top of it.

"Aren't you afraid they can't breathe?" I asked. "How long have they been in there?"

"They have been in here for millions of years," she said. "They don't need air, Edward. I'm not going to let them die; don't worry."

I wondered if I should laugh at myself or maybe at the situation. Of _course_ she was in charge of whether or not they lived or died. What did _I_ know?

"Okay," I said. It was all I could think to say in the moment.

"What is it Edward? You seem like not quite yourself."

Not quite myself? How well did she know me? I knew she knew every part of me, but since that was the case, why did she bother to ask what was the matter? She already knew, right?

"I just didn't expect this," I said, opening up as much as I could. I didn't want to try to hide anything from her. She would see through me if I was not sincere and I was afraid of what those consequences would hold for the future of Bella and me.

"What _did_ you expect?"

"I don't know," I said with a shrug. "Brimstone? Hellfire and damnation or something?"

"Edward," she said, rolling her eyes as if exasperated already, "I am _not_ a _place_."

"I'm sorry. I didn't know you were a _person_ either."

"Actually, I'm not. You're correct on that matter. I'm a force of Nature."

What did that mean? She had a body, or so it seemed. I had one too. We were sitting here together, conversing on a playground that I got to by entering a door in a sky after entering a door in a rock after crawling between two large rocks after entering a reflection of myself after digging up Bella's dead body, which was not decayed one bit. What did _any_ of this mean?

"Am _I_ a force of Nature?" I asked seriously.

She giggled. "No. But all of human consciousness combined together is."

"I'm not human," I confessed. She must have already known that.

"You came from humans and used to be one, Edward. Don't forget that." She set her jar of ancient lightning bugs back down on the bottom of the slide and pointed toward the swing set. "Give me a push?"

She danced over to the swing and sat down, waiting for me to move her.

"So, what is it you've come to speak with me about, Edward?" she invited, after I gave her a few pushes.

"Don't you already know the answer to that?" I asked. "I mean, because you've been expecting me and all that. Plus, I have this sort of feeling like you can… see right through me anyway."

"I do know. But I need to hear you say it. I can only judge you according to what you are thinking after the fruits of those thoughts prosper. I need to hear you say something or see you do something," she explained.

"I'm here to talk with you about a situation," I started. "It involves me and Isabella Marie Swan. She is dead now, but I wish she weren't. I've come to ask…"

"You are trying to _take_ something from me?" she said suddenly.

She looked back at me and smiled coldly. I thought that the smile was a signal that things were going well, but just to be sure I figured I would ask since so much about the mood had changed.

"Are you…"

"Angry?" she asked. She quirked one brow and her happy smile faded.

"Yes; angry. Are you?"

"Mmhmm," she replied, nodding her head calmly. "I am _very_ angry with you."

"Why?" I begged.

She hopped down from the seat of the swing in mid-flight and landed on her bare feet in the sand under the swing set.

"You left her for dead when you abandoned her, Edward," she reasoned. "She may not have been clear-minded when she did it, but _she_ threw _herself_ into the freezing water. I'm sorry, Edward, but her being here is simply a matter of things being as they _really_ are. You would ask me to deliver her up from Seselis, would you?"

"If I thought it would change things for her, I would," I said.

"Do you believe that asking me this will change anything?"

"I wish it would change _everything_. I wish that things could go back to how they were before she jumped. I wish I could be there to stop her. I _would_. I would stop her."

"You weren't able to stop her before, were you?"

"You mean, in the journal?" I asked. "No, I was not able to stop her in there. But those are things that happened already. There was nothing I could do to change those things. I couldn't change what she was contemplating doing to herself."

"And you cannot change that now either. She made up her mind and she did it. That's that, I'm afraid."

"But I _could_ change it if you would just allow me to…"

"You could have changed it back when you had the chance. Tell me, Edward, _why_ didn't you return to her back then? Why the sudden change of heart for you?"

"I didn't know she would die! I thought that my leaving her would allow her to have a fuller, richer life. It was the most painful thing I've ever had to endure, but it was also something I thought was the most gracious thing I could give her! I wanted her to live a long, full life. But she's not living any sort of life. She is alone."

"She could make friends on this other side, if she _wanted_ to," Hestia argued.

"She doesn't _want_ to. She _wants_ to be with me and I want to be with her! Please, let us have that opportunity again!"

"You understand that I don't _owe_ you or her anything, don't you?" she asked.

I wasn't sure if she was angry or not.

"I do understand that," I said as calmly as I could.

"Good. Then we are done here. Return to the door and let yourself out please."

She ran back over to the merry-go-round and sat down.

"Wait!" I begged. "Please, don't make me leave yet."

"Is there something else you want to tell me?" she asked.

"Yes. There _is_." I scraped through my brain, trying to think of something to say; something that might buy me some time with Hestia until I could convince her to let me have Bella back.

"Are you _sure_ you have more to say to me, Edward?" she said, raising one eyebrow.

"There must be something else for me to say," I reasoned, knowing she knew my mind was completely blank in that moment. "After all, there was a part of me that was so sure that we'd be able to come to some sort of agreement about Bella."

"We have come to an agreement," she said nonchalantly. "I said no and you live with it. That's the agreement."

"I don't want to agree to that," I said meekly. "I don't want to live without her."

"What choice do you have?" she asked with a laugh.

"I could stay here with you, until you change your mind," I suggested.

"Edward," she said, rolling her eyes again, "Please don't be immature."

It was depressing that these words came to me from the mouth of something that appeared to be a five-year-old girl. _Immature_? What else was there to be in this moment?

"I don't know how else to get what I want," I confessed. She already knew, but I said it out loud for her.

"Maybe that's the lesson? Maybe you will finally learn that you don't get whatever you want whenever you want it?"

"If it were anything else I wasn't getting my way about, I promise you, I would be fine with that. But this is _Bella_ we're talking about. Please, take my money and take my stuff, but don't send me away without _her_."

"What need do I have for things such as money?" she snorted. "Or for your stuff? It won't last. _Souls_ last, Edward. They last forever. There is nothing as precious as a soul and I intend to collect every single one of them."

"But you won't be able to collect _mine_," I reasoned out loud. I didn't mean to vocalize it and I immediately regretted saying it. Then I was struck with an idea! "Why don't we agree on a truce, then?"

"A truce? What are the conditions?"

"If you let Bella go, I will stay here. Not with you, if you don't want me to, but send me wherever you want me to be. I promise that I will stay there forever and never bother you again. When Bella is old someday and finally does die, I won't ask you to repeat the favor. I'll stay where you put me and leave you alone forever. I know I can't stay on that side with her and I know she won't be able to come to this side with me. We will be apart forever, just like we are now, which is what you must want. But in the end, you will have _both _of us."

"Both of you?" she asked. She had her hand on her chin, and she was obviously taking my offer seriously. I was prepared for her to say yes; in fact, I _wanted_ her to agree to this. "No," she said flatly. "Bella doesn't want to go back. I know because someone who wanted to live wouldn't have killed herself in the first place."

"But you're wrong," I argued. "She did want to live. She wanted to live a happy life."

"Her terms for happiness include _you. _But with your terms, she won't be able to have you. It is not something she will want and it's not something that _I_ want to force her into."

"But you are forcing her to stay here!" I shouted.

"If she didn't want to be here then she shouldn't have come!" Hestia screamed violently. Her piercing blue eyes were now frigid with anger, and I knew there was no way out from the corner I had just backed myself into.

"I'm sorry," I begged, falling to my knees, desperate to appease her. I knew she held all the cards and I was empty-handed. I knew this and yet I had managed to find a way to screw everything up for myself. "Please, Hestia! I'm _sorry_. Please…"

"Get up," she scolded me. "How dare you come into my land and treat me in this disrespectful way, Edward Cullen! How _dare_ you!"

"I'm sorry," I said, getting up as she had told me to do. "I'm sorry."

"What is all the noise about?" said a deep voice from behind me.

"This _Edward Cullen_," Hestia said, spitting my name out with disgust, "Has come to aggravate me."

"Is that so?" said the man.

I turned around and faced a tall man with a grand stature.

"Edward Cullen," he said with a smile, "I've been looking for you."

"You have?" I asked, not knowing who he was or what he wanted.

"Yes," he said, nodding his head. "Edward Cullen is a special guest of mine," he said to Hestia. "I was supposed to meet him before, face to face, but I was away on business. You stopped by my home, you see," he said to me, "But you only found one of us."

"Tuathal?" I asked.

"Yes," he said with a grin, "You are right. I am he."

"Ignis seemed worried that we were leaving without my meeting you, sir."

"Yes," he agreed. "Enapay told me that."

"I'm sorry we left when we did. I believe we had a limited amount of time, or something of that nature."

"Something of that nature, yes," he laughed. "Hestia," he said, turning to the little girl. The anger in her eyes abated and she looked worried for the smallest flash of a second.

"Yes Tuathal?" She said his name reverently and bowed before him the way a servant does to a king.

"You are a natural force, Hestia. I am a natural Force as well. Let us think on this matter. Edward and Bella cannot be together is Seselis, yet Love conquers all, as the saying goes." He paused to chuckle to himself. "Accept them both, Hestia, or keep neither of them."

"I cannot have them _both_," she pouted. "He isn't mine to take. I wouldn't want him even if I could have him, Sire."

"Then they are _both_ free from you."

She screamed violently and the ground shook. "Fine!" she snarled. "Leave!" she shouted at me. "Just _leave_!"

I didn't waste time for her to have another opportunity to take one or both of us. I hightailed it out of there in a flash. I ran back to Ignis who was waiting by the door.

"How did it go?" he asked.

"She and I are free from Death!" I said euphorically. "Free!"

"That's great, friend," he chuckled.

"Hestia wasn't going to let her go, but a man came and said that love conquered all and then he told her to let us both go."

"Tuathal is here?" he asked with surprise.

"Yes! Somehow he saved us both! She and I can be together again!"

"Let's go, then," he said, opening the door.

We fell through it and landed on our bottoms on the wet, muddy ground below. The steady rainfall had turned into a full-blown storm with tornados in the distance and earthquakes.

"She must be _pissed_!" Ignis laughed frantically. "What happened up there?"

"Like I said, she wasn't going to let us go. Well, I mean to say that she wasn't going to let Bella go, but that meant that I wouldn't be leaving either. Then Tuathal came and told her to accept both of us or let us both go. She didn't seem to have a choice but to obey him. She also said that I wasn't hers to take, and that meant that Bella was free!"

"Wow," Ignis said.

"What?"

"The reason that any of this exists at all is because of the force that he is."

"What is he?" I asked.

"Can't you tell? He is Love. It is the greatest force of all and the one that keeps all the others in their particular orders. You were right that Death didn't have a choice but to do what he commanded her to do. She may reign over taking mortals away from where they're born into. She and Time work together in that way. But Love, he really is the master of us all. You are lucky to have him on your side, friend."

"Why is he on my side?" I asked.

"Who knows? Maybe you'll find out someday. But for now, we have to get going. We have to get you to a reflection."

"What about Bella?"

"She will have already been released. You need to get to her as quickly as possible, before you have to make another trip back here to argue with Death."

"Come on!" I said. "Lead the way!"

…

A/N: Hestia is Greek and means _hearth_, which is a fireplace. Maybe you get the joke now, about why Edward was expecting fire at his meeting Death? Additionally, in Greek mythology, Hestia is known as the mystic and betrayer. She's a fascinating character, and I couldn't help but lend her name to Death in this story.

Tuathal is Irish Gaelic and means _ruler of the people_.

Thank you all for reading and a special thank you to each of you who review. I love you guys!

Stephanie


	15. In Time

**EPOV**

_"Can't you tell? He is Love. It is the greatest force of all and the one that keeps all the others in their particular orders. You were right that Death didn't have a choice but to do what he commanded her to do. She may reign over taking mortals away from where they're born into. She and Time work together in that way. But Love, he really is the master of us all. You are lucky to have him on your side, friend."_

_"Why is he on my side?" I asked._

_"Who knows? Maybe you'll find out someday. But for now, we have to get going. We have to get you to a reflection."_

_"What about Bella?"_

_"She will have already been released. You need to get to her as quickly as possible, before you have to make another trip back here to argue with Death."_

_"Come on!" I said. "Lead the way!"_

We ran back the way we had come. Although the path was the same under my feet, the surroundings had drastically changed.

"Where are we headed?" I asked after a long while of running.

"To a rock," he said. "You have to collect the liquid from the rock before you can go home."

"Liquid?" I asked.

"Yeah," I laughed. "You've heard that you can't squeeze blood from stone, right?"

"Yeah," I admitted. "I have heard that."

"Well, that's not actually true. Here," he said, motioning toward a rock that was larger than the both of us put together. "Squeeze it."

"Are you serious?" I asked, expecting this to be a prank.

"Oh Edward," he chuckled, "You are right that this sounds crazy to you. But where you're from and where you are – they are very different worlds. Just trust me. If this is a joke, you can take it out on me later. Does that sound fair enough? Now squeeze the rock, please."

I did as he said, and immediately blood and dust filled the outstretched palm of my hand.

"Drink it," he said.

I did. It smelled as though it would be delicious, but it tasted terrible.

"Oh, that's disgusting!" I shouted. "It tastes like… like…"

"Poison?" Ignis asked with a mischievous grin. "Well, it _is_. It's what you had to drink before you could go home. It will need to be mixed with Bella's blood someday. Are you prepared to do that?"

I stood there for a moment, imagining what that would entail.

"It's the only way, Edward," he said. "It's the only way you'll be able to keep her forever. And you know it's what she wants. You must take into account what _she_ wants for herself, and not just what you think is best for her. You get that now, don't you?"

I nodded my head. "I do understand," I explained. "I can hardly believe it, though – that I will get to keep her. I'd thought her gone forever. Now I get to hold her again."

"Look ahead, Edward."

A large mirror had appeared behind me. On the other side, or should I say on the _inside _of it, were the main streets of Forks covered in snow and surrounded by lights that swirled brightly in the sky. They were strung from pole to pole, indicating some sort of festival.

"It's your final door," Ignis said sadly.

"Does that mean…"

"Yup," he said. "We're never going to see each other again."

I stood there a moment longer, realizing that I had actually accomplished all that I'd come to do.

"Thank you," I said, taking his hand and shaking it.

"You're welcome, Edward." He pulled me into a brotherly hug. "You'd better get going. I can see Bella from here. She's headed toward a gypsy's tent. See there?"

I looked into the mirror, through my own reflection and toward her tiny form moving in the distance. It looked like Jessica was going into the tent first first. Bella and Angela waited outside for a brief moment before they decided to go in as well.

"Hurry," Ignis urged me. "Walk into your reflection. You'll land on the other side, just outside of the town."

"Goodbye friend," I said as I turned to walk into the mirror.

"Goodbye, Edward," he called from behind me as I stretched out my hand and glided into the realm of Forks.

I ran through the streets toward the tent that I saw Bella enter. As I approached it, being just a few yards away, she came out with Angela following her.

"Why did I come out?" Bella whined.

The strained pain in her voice ate at my very soul, just to hear how badly she was hurting from my having left.

"Don't let it bug you too much," Angela said, attempting to comfort her.

"Bella?" I asked, hardly believing that it was really her standing before me.

Her eyes lit up with _surprise _as I walked toward her. Did she not remember having died? Did she not remember anything from the other side? Could it be possible that I was literally restored to this very moment, before Bella had even gone near the edge of the cliff?

"Edward?" she gasped.

Angela looked up quickly and laughed.

"She was right," Angela whispered. "That old lady that we thought was crazy – she was _right_."

"Bella?" I asked again.

I walked toward her so that I was standing just an inch away from her. She couldn't find words to speak. She simply stood there stunned. I pulled her jacket back and saw that she was wearing _that_ shirt. I looked down to see _those_ jeans.

"I'm in time," I said.

I didn't want to imagine those clothes, with their damp smell and their dirty scathes, hung over _that_ hanger in her closet.

"In time for what?" she asked, quirking one eyebrow.

"In time…" I said, "To be with you forever, Bella. You will still have me, won't you?"

She began to cry and she threw her arms around me.

"I can't believe you're here, Edward. I thought you'd never come back. I always hoped you would, but I never believed it." She sobbed into my chest as I ran my fingers through her hair. "I thought you didn't love me anymore."

"Bella," I said, pulling her back from me so that I could look her in her eyes, "You couldn't have been more wrong than that. I love you, and I was a fool. But thank goodness that love can conquer all."

She pushed her head back into my chest and continued to sob.

"Well that was a bunch of weird crap," Jessica snorted in anger as she exited the tent. "I offer to pay her double for some _real_ info and…" She looked up at me and stepped back, stunned. "Oh my god," she gasped. "Edward? Oh my god! That old creeper was right after all! She's the real deal or something…"

She turned around, marching straight back into the tent. I heard her screech something about demanding answers, but then she came back out. Her face was pale and her eyes were wide.

"She's gone," she said.

"Gone?" Angela asked. "What do you mean she's gone?"

"She's not in there," Jessica stammered. "Is there another way out? No one saw her come out this door, right?"

"Come on," I told Bella. "Let's get you home. We have so much to catch up on."


	16. Ever After

**EPOV**

It was over a week before I could find it in me to visit the grounds where her grave would have been if Tuathal hadn't intervened and given me the greatest gift I could conceive of. I was afraid that if I went back that the marker would be there somehow. I never wanted to see her name written in stone again.

I never did tell Bella about what would have happened that night. I wanted to spare her from knowing that, but I did apologize over and over and over again. I couldn't say the words enough; they just kept spilling out of my mouth. I was so overjoyed by the opportunity to be with her again that I proposed almost immediately. She turned me down, but I wonder if nothing will come of it? She did tell me that she wanted to be with me forever. I asked her what she meant by forever, wondering if she meant _forever_ in the literal sense. It turns out she did, and we made arrangements to wait until just after graduation. She told me once that she might be reconsidering the whole "marriage thing" as she calls it ever-so-casually, and that is certainly exciting for me. She said it would be after her change, though, when she wouldn't be scolded by the world for being so old fashioned.

Like Bella, no one in my family remembered anything either, except for Alice who remembered _everything_. She recalls me walking into the glass window of our living room that night when Bella's body and Nya were among us, and then she swore that I simply disappeared. Next thing she knew, she was in the same living room, but it was the evening of the Winter Festival and she was surrounded by Carlisle, Esme, Jasper, Rose and Emmett. She asked them what had happened, and they had looked at her as if she had gone mad. Jasper suggested that maybe she just had a vision. He told her that she had been entranced that way for hours.

When I entered the gates of the little cemetery, I walked to where Bella's stone once was. It was merely a blank plot now, and all that was in the ground was the glint of a purple crystal. It was the same one that I had bought for her and tossed aside that night when I met Nya here and when I dug up Bella's grave. It was still wrapped in its silver wire. I decided not to touch it. I just left it alone, and I never went back again.

A few days later, Alice had a vision of two headstones side by side from over two hundred years earlier. There they were, together: Nya and Cephas. Over their names was a banner carved in stone: "Love Conquers All." According to the dates on their stones, they each lived to be over seventy years old.

Later that evening, just a few hours after I witnessed that vision through my sister, an old letter was delivered by hand to our door. Alice and I opened it and read aloud together:

_Dearest Friends,_

_I've heard that one cannot squeeze blood from stone, but I know now that is not true. I am a seer who believes in dreams._

_Thank you Edward; Thank you Alice,_

_Nya_

I smiled, knowing that just as Bella and I would have our ever after forever, so too would they.

_**THE END**_

…

A/N: Thank you all for reading. I am grateful to all of you who reviewed or who will review. Hearing what you have to say makes writing a joy!

With love,

Stephanie


	17. From the Author's Desk

_**From the Author's Desk**_

_**...  
**_

**Major Characters**

**Bella Swan: **Property of Stephenie Meyer

**Edward Cullen: **Property of Stephenie Meyer

**Alice Cullen: **Property of Stephenie Meyer

**Angela:** Property of Stephenie Meyer

**Jessica:** Property of Stephenie Meyer

**Nya: **She is my own creation in a way. She originally appears in _More_ and then again as "Aunt Nya" in _The Secret_. She is based off a fanfic friend of mine: luv4jake, who is awesome, by the way!

**Ignis Fatuus: **The "shadow" who takes on the form of Bella Swan to trick Edward; a trickster archetype combined with the best friend/guide archetype

**Cephas:** Nya's husband; he is lost, wandering around, trying to figure out where Nya has gone in the land of shadows/death; Edward asks Cephas to join them, but he refuses to leave without Nya; he has been tricked too many times in the land of shadows/death to take anyone at their word, even if they are honest and sincerely trying to help; in the end, he is restored to his wife and they live out long, happy days in their own time; his name means "stone," and there is symbolism in the wordplay involved throughout the story, for example, Edward passes through a narrow way between two large stones to get to the other side of Seslis; "You cannot squeeze blood from stone," and yet you can... or that is to say that a stubborn mind can be changed or that one can be restored to a lost one (nothing is impossible; that kind of motif)

**Perjura:** Her name comes from the word "perjury," meaning a willful giving of false testimony under oath or affirmation, or in other words, to lie; she is the witch who guides Edward down the wrong path; originally, he was going to follow her and eat of the fruit of her tree (but that would have made the story far too long); she would have abandoned him down the "trail of dust," leaving him to wander as Cephas wandered and **Allaya** [name means _calm_ and also _to retrieve_, her counterpart and sister, would have had to help rescue Edward with the help of Ignis]; Allaya would have helped Edward figure out how to get back on "the straight and narrow way," and she would have been scatter-brained and forgetful, but also she would have given Edward the most valuable advice about himself, indicating that deep down, she is the force of Wisdom

**Hestia:** Death; a little girl; a sweet monster; "that last and most dreaded enemy"

**Enapay: **Name means "brave" in Native American; lives with Tuathal under a dry lake

**Tuathal:** Name means "ruler of the people" in Irish Gaelic; the force of Love; restores Life to Bella so that she and Edward can have a happily ever after full of _love_

…

**Seselis:** Land of shadows; divided into people who have lived and died and people who were never mortal and never were meant to be (these latter people are forces of nature and other forces at work, such as Perjura, who is a force of distraction); Ignis can cross both sides, and so can Edward; Bella can only stay on her side because she is a deceased mortal; Edward, having entered into the Land of Shadows, he has entered into the realm of death to a degree, which means that as Nya said he would, he has died by Bella's side

**Miasma:** This place didn't make it into the story; it was where Perjura would have led Edward if I didn't cut the scene (it was edited for length); it is a dangerous, foreboding, or deathlike influence or atmosphere that surround those who are in it; basically, it is a deep state of depression and mistrust, like that of Cephas

…

**Official Disclaimer**

All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective authors (in this case, Stephenie Meyer). The plot is mine. I am not professionally affiliated with the _Twilight_ series whatsoever, and this original work is non-profit. No copyright infringement has ever been intended.


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